
Glass 



3X%Z 



Book_L_ £- 




G P O 9—1455 



/O 






EIGHT 
LECTURES ON MIRACLES 



3y t^e game #utf)or 

Second Edition. %vo. iar. 6d. 

Ruling Ideas in Early Ages and their Relation 

to Old Testament Faith. Lectures delivered to Graduates of 
the University of Oxford. 

Third Edition. Crown 8z>o. Js. 6d. 

Sermons Preached before the University of 

Oxford, and on Various Occasions. 

RIVINGTONS 
Hortuort, 2DjcforB, anU eTambriDGe 



[b— 394] 



EIGHT 
LECTURES ON MIRACLES 



PREACHED BEFORE 



THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 



IN THE YEAR M.DCCC.LXV 



ON THE FOUNDATION OF 

THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, &/A. 



CANON OF SALISBURY 



By J. B. MOZLEY, D.D. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD 



Nefo York 

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 

MDCCCLXXIX 



ism 



% Transfer 

*>• c - Publid Library 

° Ec 2 2 1938 



. 



373027 

V) 

$ 

EXTRACT 

I 

FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 

OF THE LATE 



Eev. JOHN BAMPTON 

CANON OF SALISBURY 

" I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the" Chancellor, 

11 Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have 
" and to hold all and singular tfre said Lands or Estates upon trust, 
" and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to 
" say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University 
" of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, 
" issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and 
" necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the 
" endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for 
" ever in the said University, and to be performed in the manner 
"following: 

" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, 
" a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by 
" no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between 
" the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach 
" eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's 
" in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent 
" Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. 

" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Ser- 
" mons shall be preached upon either of the following subjects — to con- 
"firm and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and 
" schismatics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — 
" upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to 
"the faith and. practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity 



vi Extract from Canon B amp tons Will 

" of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the 
" Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre- 
" hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 

" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture 
" Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are 
" preached ; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the 
" University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one 
" copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put 
" into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall 
" be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for estab- 
" lishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not 
" be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. 

" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to 
"preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the 
" degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of 
" Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach 
" the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 



PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 



THE difficulty which attaches to Miracles, in the period 
of thought through which we are now passing, is one 
which is concerned not with their evidence, hut with their 
intrinsic credibility. There has risen in a certain class of 
minds an apparent perception of the impossibility of sus- 
pensions of physical law. This is one peculiarity of the 
present time: another is a disposition to maintain the dis- 
belief of miracles upon a religious basis, and in connexion 
with a declared belief in the Christian revelation. 

The following Lectures, therefore, are addressed mainly 
to the fundamental question of the credibility of Miracles; 
their use, and the evidences of them, being only touched 
on subordinately and collaterally. It was thought that 
such an aim, though in itself a narrow and confined one, 
was most adapted to the particular need of the day. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 1 



THE recent movement of thought in the direction of physical 
explanation of the Gospel miracles or the reference of them to 
unknown laws of nature, has exhibited more of philosophical senti- 
ment than philosophical discrimination. The movement has origin- 
ated in a wish to meet scientific objections to miracles as isolated and 
anomalous facts ; and the aim has been to reconcile miracles, or to 
shew that we have a right to expect and look forward to their 
reconciliation, with the claims of science. With this aim it was 
necessary that when writers spoke of the possibility of miracles being 
reconciled with the laws of nature, they should distinctly understand 
that they meant a reconciliation with the laws of nature in the 
scientific sense, — those laws which scientific men mean when they use 
this phrase. Unless there is a clear understanding on this point the 
whole labour of such an enquiry is thrown away. For how could the 
objections of physical science be met by even proving ever so clearly 
the possible consistency of miracles with natural law in a different 
sense from that in which physical science understands it ? But 
though it was so necessary that those who aimed at some reconcilia- 
tion of miracles with the laws of nature, in order to meet the 
objections of science, should keep the scientific sense of natural law 
distinctly in their minds, this has not been done ; but the expression 
'•'law of nature" has been constantly used without any accurate or 
distinct meaning, and the result has been a considerable waste of 
speculating power. There has been the feeling that something must 
be done on this head, a general desire to satisfy scientific tests, and a 
disposition to give a guarantee that miracles if accepted shall only be 
accepted as in some way or other coming under natural law, and 
being instances of it. But when this wish came to reason ; when it 
came to deal with the question how this reduction of miracles to 
natural law was to be made out, there was a large interval between 
the desire felt, and the argumentative satisfaction of it ; and the 
speculative aim issued in much confusion and obscurity. 

1 This preface includes the matter of some Notes of the First Edition. 



Preface to Second Edition 



shew that it is not neIe s far V to P r e t S ? f° ^ ende ™o to 
events ; and have for That m,r,Zf "T^ M abs ^tely irregular 
assumed to be true , rnSZld ^T 4 "W*»»- »Pon which, 
instances oflaw BrU when IT T ° ' SyStem and would b * 

JWto, and as in this ,.1 no , Tlolatl0 ^ of the laws of the 
Spinoza' position?* that < notiT ?T ° f th<S laWS of *«««* 
he contralto i"^LSX I ;t^Thtdef natUreCan 
Spinoza's position, and applies it tr> rt, 1 Ce acce P ts 

miracles are in a certain stnse natural TheT^ vf"** ftat 
law of nature is just as n,t^Tm ultlTttt Tf* 
suspended. There is thereW „ . f! S the law which is 

with relation to the Livers Z lT t ■' ^ aS * "^ * OT 

2. Butler has wovoZTt'J r * ™ natoal as anot her. 

consists in tuS^J^^i^^ ° f m ™*s which 

%^».^SK n Bf ^^ -J, be miraculous 

and that therefore to an ST ■ Y 1TCrSe besides our °™> 
with these extia culry S£R ^V ° *" ^ ^ nainted 
proceedings in thTwoJd would nre "if" T^ ^ miraCulous 

portion to their greater knowledge SSSf" P /°" 
pensations of His mwin'oT,™ w .7 t,od and the otis- 

ing that theretybeb ™ " in Z* T^T ^ f "^ fa "W* 
knowledge,andyiWsma^he^ * diverse whose capacities, and 
dispensation may to h^m all T™,' "? ^ ^ WMe Christia * 
able to God's ITlbltTh ff U f' "' analo « ous or «»W 

the yisibletownTur ^J^^^T^T^ » 
scarce any other possible «pt,«« f« 1 ap ? ears t0 us - F or there seems 

in which it is her^S S, tS, £^» ^ ~ "* 



1 Ana logy, pt. i. ch. 



Preface to Second Edition xi 
/-^ 

3. Mr. Babbage has suggested that a miracle may, for anything we 
know, be the result of the same original law of creation of which 
nature itself is ; the same mechanism which produces the order of 
nature, producing also the exception to it. And he has illustrated 
this conception by the analogy of a calculating engine, which produces 
by the same adjustment a regular succession of numbers, and then an 
exceptional insulated number, after which it takes up again the old 
succession. 1 

Here, then, are three naturalizing rationales of miracles, i.e. which 
divest miracles in a certain sense of their anomalous and irregular 
character, and engraft them upon system and order ; — rationales which 
are serviceable and valuable as meeting the natural and reasonable 
desire, inherent in the human mind, for order and law in some sense, 
as necessarily attaching to all the works of God, and necessarily 
belonging to everything in the Universe. The human mind rejects 
total irregularity and eccentricity as an impossibility in the Universe 
as a whole ; and therefore in the case of any visibly anomalous event, 
such as a miracle, the human mind is committed to the discovery of 
some point of view in which the event in question is not an anomaly 
but a natural event ; and it is committed to shew that the point of 
view in which such an event is natural is paramount to and takes 
precedence of that point of view in which it is anomalous. The first 
position, then, that I have noticed is not a mere conjectural hypothesis, 
but it effects this object with respect to miracles by an argument 
which, upon the supposition of the existence of a personal Deity, is 
irresistible and incapable of refutation. For if there is a Being in the 
Universe which can suspend a law of nature, the power which sus- 
pends the law is evidently just as natural, and is just as much 
belonging to the Universe as the power which sustains it. Again, 
Butler's imaginary supposition, though it is no more than imaginary, 
is still important as shewing the possibilities of the case ; that there 
may be, for anything we know, certain miraculous dispensations 
going on in other worlds which would make the miraculous dispensa- 
tion in this world one of a class or order of events, and in that light 
natural. Again, Mr. Babbage's hypothesis, by referring a miracle 
back to the original law of creation which produced the order of 
nature, naturalizes it in some sense. But though these rationales of 
miracles have for their object the naturalizing of miracles in some 
sense, it is evident when we examine them, that none of them are or 
profess to be physical explanations of miracles, i.e. reductions of them 

1 Ninth Bridgwater Treatise, ch. viii. 



xii Preface to Second Edition 

to laws of nature in the scientific sense of that term. In no case is 
the order npon which they engraft miracles, the order of the actual 
physical world of which we have experience. 

1. The first position asserts the supremacy of the higher law of the 
Divine Power over the subordinate laws of visible nature. The 
order in which a miracle is inserted then by this position is obviously 
and by the very terms of the statement a spiritual and invisible order, 
not a physical or visible one. 

The same rationale of the naturalness of a miracle is sometimes 
expressed by another formula, for which we are indebted to Brown, 
that a miracle is not contrary to the law of cause and effect, but is 
only an effect produced by the introduction of a new cause. And 
this formula of Brown's has been put in an amended form by some 
writers, who urge that in a miracle there is no violation or suspension 
of the laws of nature, which go on but are neutralized or counteracted 
by a higher law. But it is evident that the naturalness which is gained 
for a miracle by either of these explanations, is not a naturalness, or 
a conformity to the laws of nature, in the scientific sense ; because 
the point upon which the naturalness of a fact turns in science, is 
not whether that fact has a cause simply, but whether it has a uniform 
or constant cause, i.e. whether it has the same antecedent by which it 
has been invariably attended in other cases. It is nothing to the 
scientific man to be told that the rolling away of the stone from the 
door of the sepulchre was in itself a natural fact which could have 
been effected by human machinery, and that the cause alone was 
supernatural ; because the character of the cause or antecedent is the 
very point of the question in his eye. Had the stone been rolled 
away by machinery, no fact could have been more natural ; but if it 
was rolled away without the application of any human force, the fact 
w T as then unaccompanied by its ordinary and constant antecedent, and 
was therefore not a natural fact in the scientific sense. Nor does the 
amended form of the formula of Brown make the slightest difference 
on this head. It does not signify in the eye of the man of science 
how we describe the substitution of another and a different antecedent 
of an event, for its ordinary and regular one ; whether we say that 
the law of nature was in that case suspended, or continued but was 
neutralized by a higher law ; he looks only to the fact itself of a 
strange antecedent. Was sight recovered by means of medical treat- 
ment, or by the restoring force of time ? that was a natural fact, be- 
cause these are ordinary antecedents of recovery. Was it recovered 
by the word of a person ? it was then not a natural fact, because it 
occurred not with its ordinary, but with a new and strange antecedent. 



Preface to Second Edition xiii 

It is quite true that we see laws of nature any day and any hour 
neutralized and counteracted in particular cases, and yet do not look 
upon such counteractions as other than the most natural events : but 
it must be remembered that, where this is the case, the counteracting 
agency is as ordinary and constant an antecedent in nature as the 
agency which it counteracts. The agency of the muscles and the 
agency of the magnet are as ordinary as the agency of gravitation 
which they both neutralize. Medicine is as ordinary an agent as 
the disease which it resists. The action of salt is as constant a cause 
in nature as the putrefaction which it retards. All these facts then 
are natural. But where the counteracting power to a law of nature is 
an unknown power, a power not in nature, then the counteraction or 
neutralization of a law of nature is not a natural fact, being deprived 
of its ordinary and constant antecedent, and coupled with another and 
a new antecedent. The elevation of a body in the air by the force of 
an arm, is a counteraction indeed of the law of gravitation, but it is a 
counteraction of it by another law as natural as that of gravity. The 
fact therefore is in conformity with the laws of nature. But if the 
same body is raised in the air without any application of a known 
force, it is not a fact in conformity with natural law. In all these 
cases the question is not whether a law of nature has been counter- 
acted, for that does not constitute a fact contradictory to the laws of 
nature ; but whether it has been counteracted by another natural law. 
If it has been, the conditions of science are fulfilled. But if a law of 
nature has been counteracted by a law out of nature, it is of no pur- 
pose, with a view to naturalize scientifically that counteraction of a 
law of nature, to say that the law of nature has been going on all the 
time, and only been neutralized not suspended or violated. These 
are mere refinements of language, which do not affect the fact itself, 
that a new conjunction of antecedent and consequent, wholly unlike 
the conjunctions in nature, has taken place. The laws of nature have 
in that instance not worked, and an effect contrary to what would 
have issued from those laws has been produced. This is ordinarily 
called a violation or suspension of the laws of nature ; and it seems 
an unnecessary refinement not to call it such. But whatever name 
we give to it, the fact is the same ; and the fact is not according to the 
laws of nature in the scientific sense . 

2. The imaginary hypothesis of Bishop Butler is only an ima- 
ginary one, and therefore it is not one of which physical science can 
take any cognizance. The claim of physical science is that miracles 
should be reconciled with the actual order of nature, of which we have 



-_i~ -ji -.1 - ' . ■;_ eh "" ; ~_- :. ' __ — - reiT nor -i;nt^ 

i_ - i - ~ i l 

.___- 2. ._:-. :.~ i-.-- nnrcciciJES - mrinrie \_- ■■ 

: _ - i : ._-_'._ - zzz z .. _. v z'-..:zl _ z. - . ~ - . i - v _i 

_ - " " " "_ i ; - ._ " I : . T iH".~ " ; 

i ~ — - - i "".:"--- " : - - - i - — - " " - - _ " . _ " - : ' . - 

- zds ' -~- ~ ' : - " " ;-.i' - -__ i:: 

. ~ - I 12 v~ — -1 ~ —- ~- ... . " - 

._ -Z - "l 1 " ~Hti TTTi-yr : IiEZH - _i [ : - rrrr __ - _ ■ imrrmrT hill 

:h& TTTirmii. - z ' - : - ._ imz i ii -._ iz '._ - - z 

_ _ z _ " in i :i ] z . _ - :i z - - ~ : : " _ """ z 

! . titti . . ■ - ■ _i in " v . ~ _ ~z ._ _. ~ z __ - -z zz i - 

T ._ . z.- inr^nxiL y~;i;rrt ■•:-.- i . . ; - _■- z: — . z _ --- : : 

vit Lt - : — ,z~ z m _. '. : _ . zz " z.-- _z . - 

z - "ittt ~ z - ; us r m ~z - z - z z ? ziz z~ . 

EH : -'- I : tt rpaiTty m mi " _i - 

naWfcBMTlT" A TTTgaa " _ -.1 ~. -T!" . "~ ...J 

I ~ •HfniTmffniT Tr. rmf y~ itfrsT - ■ _ -.1 - _ iftraai z_~'Z - : 

he z EC z. zz - . zz - zz i_ - _ _ ; 1 - zz 

~ - - 1 eI ----- 1 . \- . una .. - rsc z_ lzl z -~t 1 ■ zlut 

; [ EC ED _ -1 1 - - HI II H _Z. I . ._ - _ "" ._ ■ 

_- " 1 . " z- — - ] j. : z_ z .i-zz:- 1 1 

SjDIL B z - " "zz . " - z - . z _ - - ■ " -__ Errrr yrpT 

e --:.i 1 : - m " - "_ -j " "_ _"_ "■■-•_- 

: - — __ . : 1 EfinrE — -_ . „ - izutm 

__ • -. - I . ■. ffTTS-i - -_ - " 

. . _i bi . ; an ' - . F ttrfffp ■■"— "Tf*iTm 

__ __ r_. : - : _ . _ - 

— -_ . "_ t i.gigHH«t£ '5simiTS :i._-: ; bi _ _ : - - _ - 

" - "_ - ~ HUE Tl;;.r> EH"' 1 - 1_ TT TTff 11 

End _ - r . ; m bna ._ - ss sens ml — - ] 

l . E -r . ' ' _ _: • ■ : " 1 ^ . _ : .7 . ~ .;_ ~ 

\-- ~- E; - — -i -■ - i:. ~ _ 1 "i : 

rTl.;rimLt"y ..: * OilWTJ . .J. ._ • - - 

m -j - ■ - - - : ..: " . " - - - - .jJTTgTT ii-ii-. ----- ._ :ie 
1 11 - '- _ • _ -i_i ■ i_ - - _ - [ 1 - _ 1 - 

n- r . - : snaia xnunntlmi- . ui . 1 . - - - — „/ . - 

i_ • m ' Hmm ' - sc 

T. 1 _" "" i- - : - 1 -__- i—i- vim 1 

31 - 

l. - .. " "" 1_ . ■ - ____ .___" 



Preface to Second Edition xv 



rnitting laws of nature under which they came ; that is to say, could 
we imagine that it was found out by observation that miracles, thougli 
exceptions, were recurring exceptions, and exceptions which recurred 
with the same invariable antecedents. Could we suppose, amid the 
apparent irregularity and disorder which marked the occurrence of 
miracles in the world, that traces of such a law as this could be made 
out ; and that these exceptions to the order of nature, were, as excep- 
tions, uniform and regular ; in that case miracles would have been as 
truly brought under the laws of nature as the regular course of nature 
is. But the remark is obvious that no such intermitting law of 
miracles is seen in nature ; and it may be remarked further, that 
could we imagine such a law in existence, we could only imagine it 
by imag inin g also at the same time an alteration of the present order 
of nature. Such a conception would involve this result. For the re- 
currence, with whatever intervals, of miracles as, e.g. resurrections 
from the dead with regularity and uniformity, or with the same in- 
variable antecedents, would constitute a new order of nature. 1 

2. The other mode of reconciling miracles with the laws of nature 
in the scientific sense, is the construction of some hypothesis which, if 
true, would bring them out of their apparent isolation, strip them of 
their apparent eccentricity, and reduce them to the head of known 
classes of facts. This has been done, and is constantly being done, 
with respect to eccentric natural phenomena. Explanations are con- 
structed which solve the apparent anomaly and irregularity, and shew 
how the extraordinary effect may have been in reality owing to well- 
known laws acting under unwonted circumstances. And if the ex- 
planations are admissible, these eccentric phenomena stand hypothe- 
tically under the head of natural law. Can the same thing be done 
then with respect to miracles ? The answer is, that this must depend 
on what the miracles are. We have the miracles of Scripture before 
us. "We are also in possession of science with its large powers and re- 
sources for the construction of hypotheses and explanations. Can any 
scientific hypothesis be constructed which would bring the miracles 
of Scripture, the greater and more stupendous as well as the lesser 
ones, under natural law. It must be admitted, that considering what 



1 The analogy of the arithmetical machine fails Avith reference to a phy- 
sical law of miracles, there being no intermitting law of miracles in nature 
answering to the intermitting law of numbers in the machine. The 
machine upon the same adjustment, always produces the same exceptional 
number ; which therefore belongs to the law of the machine. But there is 
no regularity in. the recurrence of miracles corresponding to this regularity 
in the recurrence of the exceptional number. 



xvi Preface to Second Edition 



some of the Scripture miracles are, such, an expectation is chimerical : 
that the nature of the anomalies is such that no scientific hypothesis 
is conceivable which can subjugate them, strip them of physical sin- 
gularity, and reduce them to natural facts. Does the assemblage of 
miracles which gathers round our Lord, commencing with His birth, 
carried on in His ministry, and terminating in His Resurrection and 
Ascension, admit of any conceivable physical solution ? 

It must be seen that the impediment to the reconciliation of 
miracles with the laws of nature in the scientific sense, arises from the 
special character of that sense, from the peculiarity of the scientific 
definition of the laws of nature. The scientific sense of "laws of 
nature" is a particular restricted sense, it does not go outside of or 
take in anything but absolute physical facts, regarded as uniformly 
recurrent, or recurring with the same antecedents. Can the miracles 
of Scripture be reduced to this head \ Recent reconciling speculation 
has by an ambiguous use of the term " laws of nature" concealed the 
point of the question, and prevented persons from seeing what the 
real problem which they had proposed to themselves was. 

It must be observed, too, that it is not only the physical occurrence 
itself which in the case of these miracles has to be reduced to the 
order of nature, but the physical occurrence as corresponding to and 
fitting in with a command, an announcement, a whole set of preten- 
sions on the part of the person who is the agent or the centre of them. 
Should the question e.g. ever be raised, whether the miracle of our 
Lord's Resurrection was a fact ultimately referrible to natural law ; 
the fact about which the question would lie, i.e. about which we should 
have to enquire whether it might be ultimately natural or not, would 
be, not the simple resurrection of a man from the dead, but that re- 
surrection as coinciding with the whole nature, mission and office of 
Christ, His whole character, life and ministry, as well as with the 
previous announcements of the event. It is impossible not to see, 
even when the occurrence itself is of the most marvellous kind, how 
immensely this correspondence to a notification and adaptation to a 
whole set of circumstances add to the supernaturalness of the miracle, 
and to its inexplicableness upon natural grounds. Because all this 
points, upon the argument of design or coincidence, to a special 
interposition of God, as distinguished from unknown physical causa- 
tion. Those circumstances of a miracle which distinguish it from an 
isolated marvel are also great evidences of its supernatural character. 
No physical explanation of it as an isolated marvel is an explanation 
of those circumstances which distinguish it from a marvel. 

Indeed, if we consider what a miracle in the religious sense is, that 



Preface to Second Edition xvii 

it is in its very nature and design something special, something in 
apparent contradiction to the order of nature, and that it would not 
answer all its purposes unless it was ; what reason can there be why 
such designed apparent exception to physical order should be in 
reality all the time an instance of physical order? If there is indeed 
no power in the universe equal to suspending the laws of nature, such 
a conclusion is wanted ; but if there is — and a miracle in the religious 
sense assumes such a power — why should there be this reversal of the 
appearance by the reality? Why should the physical exception 
follow physical regularity ? The special act be a uniformly recurrent 
act ? What is the meaning of such an appended condition ? And why 
should a miraculous interposition of the Deity not only agree with 
natural law in the universal sense, which in the reason of the case it 
must do, but also satisfy a particular restricted and technical sense of 
natural law assigned to the term in physical science ? 

The authority of Bp. Butler has been quoted for the hypothesis of 
the referribleness of miracles to unknown laws of nature ; but this is 
a misinterpretation of his meaning, as a reference to his whole argu- 
ment will shew : — 

" If the natural and the revealed dispensation of things are both 
from God, if they coincide with each other and together make up one 
scheme of Providence; our being incompetent judges of one, must 
render it credible that we may be incompetent judges also of the 
other; since upon experience the acknowledged constitution and 
course of nature is found to be greatly different from what, before 
experience, we should have expected; and such as men fancy there 
lie great objections against: this renders it beforehand highly credible 
that they may find the revealed dispensation likewise, if they judge 
of it as they do of the constitution of nature, very different from 
expectations formed beforehand, and liable in appearance to great 
objections; objections against the scheme itself, and against the 
degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was 
attested and carried on. . . . 

" If this miraculous power was indeed given to the world to propa- 
gate Christianity and attest the truth of it, we might, it seems, have 
expected, that other sort of persons should have been chosen. to be 
invested with it ; or that these should, at the same time, have been 
endued with prudence ; or that they should have been continually 
restrained and directed in the exercise of it : i.e. that God should have 
miraculously interposed, if at all, in a different manner or higher 

b 



xviii Preface to Second Edition 

degree. But, from the observations made above, it is undeniably 
evident, that we are not j adges in what degrees and manners it were 
to have been expected He should miraculously interpose ; upon sup- 
position of His doing it in some degree and manner." (Analogy, Part 
II. ch. iii.) 

" The credibility, that the Christian dispensation may have been, 
all along, carried on by general laws, no less than the course of nature, 
may require to be more distinctly made out. Consider then, upon 
what ground it is we say, that the whole common course of nature is 
carried on according to general fore-ordained laws. We know indeed 
several of the general laws of matter : and a great part of the natural 
behaviour of living agents is reducible to general laws. But we know 
in a manner nothing, by what laws, storms and tempests, earthquakes, 
famine, pestilence, become the instruments of destruction to mankind. 
And the laws, by which persons born into the world at such a time 
and place, are of such capacities, geniuses, tempers ; the laws, by 
which thoughts come into our mind, in a multitude of cases : and by 
which innumerable things happen, of the greatest influence upon the 
affairs and state of the world ; these laws are so wholly unknown to 
us, that we call the events, which come to pass by them, accidental : 
though all reasonable men know certainly, that there cannot in reality 
be any such thing as chance ; and conclude, that the things which 
have this appearance are the result of general laws, and may be re- 
duced into them. It is then but an exceeding little way, and in but 
a very few respects, that we can trace up the natural course of things 
before us to general laws. And it is only from analogy that we con- 
clude the whole of it to be capable of being reduced into them ; only 
from our seeing that part is so. It is from our finding that the course 
of nature, in some respects and so far, goes on by general laws, that 
we conclude this of the rest. And if that be a just ground for such 
a conclusion, it is a just ground also, if not to conclude, yet to appre- 
hend, to render it supposable and credible, which is sufficient for an- 
swering objections, that God's miraculous interpositions may have 
been, all along in like manner, by general laws of wisdom. Thus, 
that miraculous powers should be exerted, at such times, upon such 
occasions, in such degrees and manners, and with regard to such per- 
sons, rather than others ; that the affairs of the world, being permitted 
to go on in their natural course so far, should, just at such a point, 
have a new direction given them by miraculous interpositions ; that 
these interpositions should be exactly in such degrees and respects 
only ; all this may have been by general laws. These laws are un- 
known indeed to us : but no more unknown than the laws from 



Preface to Second Edition xix 

whence it is, that some die as soon as they are born, and others live 
to extreme old age ; that one man is so superior to another in under- 
standing ; with innumerable more things, which, as was before ob- 
served, we cannot reduce to any laws or rules at all, though it is 
taken for granted they are as much reducible to general ones as 
gravitation. Now, if the revealed dispensations of providence and 
miraculous interpositions be by general laws, as well as God's ordi- 
nary government in the course of nature, made known by reason and 
experience, there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it 
arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous 
interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by the 
general laws of nature ; yet there might be wise and good reasons 
that miraculous interpositions should be by general laws, and that 
these laws should not be broken in upon, or deviated from, by other 
miracles." (Ibid. chap, iv.) 

Butler, then, is meeting objections to the scheme and evidence of 
Christianity ; and, among the rest, " objections against the degrees 
and manners of the miraculous interpositions by which it was attested 
or carried on." And one answer by which he meets these objections 
is, that " Christianity is a scheme or constitution imperfectly com- 
prehended;" and that therefore, in our ignorance of the mode in 
which God's miraculous interpositions have been conducted, there is 
nothing against the supposition that they have been all along con- 
ducted by " general laws." Upon which supposition, he observes, 
the apparent defects in the exercise of these miraculous powers and 
the objects answered by them may be satisfactorily accounted for ; 
because " there is no more reason to expect that every exigence as it 
arises should be provided for by these general laws of miraculous 
interpositions, than that every exigence in nature should by the 
general laws of nature." 

We now come to that point of the argument at which Butler is 
misapprehended; i.e. where he is supposed to refer miracles to 
unknown laws of nature, whereas his mention of the laws of nature 
is for a very different purpose. Having made the supposition of 
miraculous interpositions being " by general laws of wisdom," 
although these laws are unknown to us, he confirms that supposition 
by a reference to the unknown laws of nature by which we are 
surrounded on all sides. Our ignorance, he says, of the general 
laws of miraculous interpositions, is no reason that there may not be 
such laws ; for we are ignorant of many of the laws of natural 
phenomena, " storms, tempests, earthquakes, famine, pestilence ; " 
and yet we are certain that those events do take place in obedience 



xx Preface to Second Edition 

to certain laws. The unknown laws of nature are introduced, not as 
being the laws by which miracles take place, but as furnishing a 
parallel to those laws, upon the point of being unknown, which is a 
characteristic common to both. He does not say that the laws by 
which miracles take place are physical laws as those are by which 
earthquakes and pestilences take place ; but that our ignorance of 
the physical laws by which earthquakes and pestilences occur is a 
precedent for our being ignorant of the general laws of wisdom by 
which miracles occur ; which laws may exist notwithstanding, and 
have governed those interpositions all along. The common ground 
is not the identity of the laws under which extraordinary natural 
phenomena and miraculous interpositions come, but the similarity of 
the ignorance of the laws in both cases. 

Such is the meaning of Butler. The " general laws of miraculous 
interpositions " and the general laws of nature are two different sets 
of laws in the argument ; but the one supplies a ground for a supposi- 
tion respecting the other ; the existence of unknown laws of nature 
shews the possibility of there being unknown laws of miraculous 
interpositions. "Why, the objector asks, if God has interposed mira- 
culously, have not these interpositions been more general, and more 
effectual ? Why have not miraculous corrections been applied more 
largely to the faults and omissions which are inherent in the opera- 
tion of the laws of nature, as being general laws, directed to the 
general as distinguished from private and individual advantage? 
The answer of Butler is, that these miraculous interpositions them- 
selves may, for anything we know, have been all along conducted 
by general laws ; and thus that the benefit from them, may have 
been limited by the same cause which has limited the benefit of the 
laws of nature. 

The phrase, then, " general laws of wisdom," is not a phrase which, 
in Butler's meaning, stands for the laws of nature or points to any 
physical solution of miracles. The phrase expresses and stands for 
certain general rules laid down by Providence, so to speak, for its 
own guidance ; according to which rules " miraculous powers are 
exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such degrees and 
manners," &c; which general rules Providence observes, although on 
particular occasions partial advantages might follow from the infrac- 
tion of them ; the partial disadvantages of such rules, and their 
failure to provide for " every exigence/' being the very condition of 
their general benefit. And thus understood, the supposition that 
" God's miraculous interpositions may have been all along by general 
laws of wisdom," would substantially mean that there was an in- 



Preface to Second Edition xxi 

herent limit in the nature of things to the utility of miracles, beyond 
which they would produce injury and disadvantage ; the general 
bad result of the excess being greater than the particular benefit of 
it ; which intrinsic limit was necessarily observed by the Author of 
Nature, who conducted these interpositions in agreement with these 
intrinsic reasons, and by rules which coincided with them. 

The hypothesis of unknown physical law, then, cannot meet the 
miracles of Scripture as they stand : and in order to apply such an 
explanation with any success, it is necessary that a previous step 
should have been taken with respect to the miraculous facts them- 
selves. This whole hypothesis in truth supposes, for its own feasibility, 
the previous application of a rationalistic criticism to the Gospel 
history ; it supposes a prior reduction of the type of the miraculous 
facts recorded in it, so as to accommodate them to the proposed 
explanation, and make them proper subjects of a scientific solution. 
In order to be open to such treatment in the first instance, the 
material must have been prepared by criticism; in which case it 
entirely depends on the extent to which such criticism goes, what the 
material is which is finally dealt with, and what facilities it affords 
for such treatment. This hypothesis means, in short, a scientific 
explanation of some extraordinary events which may be supposed to 
have been the original of the Gospel history. Such an original is, in the 
minds of those who entertain it, of vague and indefinite composition ; 
but so long as the imagination secures a type of fact which, however 
vague, is subject-matter of scientific explanation, there is a ground 
made for a scientific explanation to enter upon and occupy. The 
preparation, however, of the material is necessary in the first instance; 
the critical idea is virtually the dominant one in this whole hypo- 
thesis of unknown law ; the mind has, consciously or unconsciously, 
adopted it, allowed it to play its part, and given it authority to deal 
with the facts, before that hypothesis is applied. The real instrument 
of reduction to law which is employed in this hypothesis is therefore 
criticism. One view of historical evidence opens the road most 
effectually to a scientific explanation of Gospel facts ; another view 
closes it. For if those miracles really took place as they are recorded, 
no hypothesis can bridge over the chasm between them and physical 
law in the scientific sense. In the theological sense of natural law, 
which includes the invisible laws of Divine power, all the miracles of 
Scripture are instances of natural law ; but the idea of reconciling 
them with the natural law of science is chimerical, unless with the 
pTwious aid of rationalistic criticism. 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 



IT must be observed that the controversy respecting miracles tends 
to a stationary point, at which each side sees what its real pre- 
mises are, and sees that it is separated from the other by a difference of 
first principles. This has perhaps been the case in the recent discus- 
sion of this question. 

In the first place, those arguments which profess to settle the 
question of miracles by a kind of mathematical method, deciding 
against their possibility by general formulas, may be said to be 
abandoned by men of philosophy and science. Thus we cannot read 
Spinoza's professed demonstration against miracles without being 
struck with the sort of antiquated and obsolete character which it 
carries upon the very surface of it. Nor has a recent attempt, which 
is noticed in these Lectures, to settle the question by a quasi-mathe- 
matical proof been supported by men of science. The more the 
human mind has gone into this question, the more it has seen reason 
to put aside all & priori ground against miracles as wholly inadequate, 
and to consider that the only question which has to be decided on 
this subject, and which seriously demands our attention, is the 
question of evidence — whether certain alleged miraclen have taken 
place or not. 

But when, having put the speculative class of arguments against 
miracles aside, we go to the practical question of evidence, we find our- 
selves here again, before long, coming to a standstill in controversy, 
because it soon appears that the two sides have no common criterion 
of good evidence and bad • that what is strong evidence to one man 
is weak to another ; what is sufficient to one is defective to another. 
And, what is especially to the purpose, this difference does not arise 
merely from a different estimate of witnesses and external data ; which 
is an accidental variation, depending on a fluctuating individual judg- 
ment : but it arises from a deeper and more settled cause, in the funda- 
mental principles and assumptions of the two sides; their respective 
preliminary premises and inward convictions. We may note it as a law 



xxiv Preface to Third Edition 

of evidence, that our estimate of the evidences of any fact necessarily 
varies according to the greater or less antecedent probahility which 
we attach to the fact. We see this very clearly when the antecedent 
probability is of the kind which arises from ordinary experience: 
we accept, without any hesitation, the evidence of any one we meet 
upon a common every-day fact ; while the very same evidence, if 
brought in support of an extraordinary fact, would not satisfy us, 
and we should accept it, if we did, with difficulty. That is to say : 
antecedent probability makes sound, and the want of it makes weak 
evidence. The truth is, no one is ever convinced by external 
evidence only ; there must be a certain probability in the fact itself, 
or a certain admissibility in it, which must join on to the external 
evidence for it, in order for that evidence to produce conviction. 
Nor is it any fault in external evidence that it should be so ; but 
it is an intrinsic and inherent defect in it, because in its very nature 
it is only one part of evidence which needs to be supplemented by 
another, or a 'priori premiss existing in our minds. Antecedent 
probability is the rational complement of external evidence ; a law 
of evidence unites the two ; and they cannot practically be separated. 
I have spoken of the antecedent probability which is founded upon 
ordinary sensible experience. But there is an antecedent probability 
also which is formed not by common sensible experience but by 
original ideas, instinctive impressions, and fundamental convictions of 
the mind. Such are the principles of natural religion, which is the 
name we give to certain moral and religious assumptions, which form 
the groundwork upon which some proceed in all considerations of 
evidence ; but which are not embraced and adopted by all minds. 
These inward premises affect the whole idea of God in the human 
mind, and with it the whole view of miracles, their place in the 
scheme of Providence, their use, and their probability. There are 
two ideas of the Divine Being which spring respectively from two 
sets of first principles — one of which gathers around conscience, the 
other round a physical centre. There is the idea of God as the 
Supreme Mundane Being, the Impersonation of the causes which are 
at work in the development and completion of the visible world ; 
who looks — not from heaven — with calm satisfaction upon the suc- 
cessful expansion of the original seed of this vast material organism 
— the Universal Spectator of the fabric of Nature, the growth of art, 
and the progress of civilization. And there is the idea of Him as 
Moral Governor and Judge expressed in the majestic language of 
Inspiration, which proclaims the " High and lofty One that inhabiteth 
eternity, whose name is Holy : keeping mercy for thousands, for- 



Preface to Third Edition xxv 

giving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means 
clear the guilty." It must make all the difference in our notion of 
miracles, and in the antecedent probability with which the evidence 
of miracles is accompanied, whether we entertain one of these ideas 
of God or the other. If we entertain the former, there is nothing for 
miracles to do, they have no place in the system of things according 
to our conception of it, they are wholly foreign and alien facts, incon- 
gruous, discordant, and unmeaning. If we entertain the latter, there 
is a reason for them : they have a natural place in the whole scheme 
of things, as we conceive it ; especially they have a use, as a guarantee 
to a revelation, should it please God to make known to us anything 
in His spiritual relations to us, which we do not know by our natural 
reason. 

The antecedent probability then arising from this inward source 
has the same effect regarding external evidence, in giving greater 
admissibility to it, that the antecedent probability of sensible experi- 
ence has. It is true they are probabilities arising upon wholly dif- 
ferent ground, and they may be called probabilities of different kinds; 
but each of them is probability, and as such this consequence attaches 
to each of them alike, viz. that of affecting the strength of external 
evidence. The same evidence must appear very different to us, be 
measured differently, and have a more or less persuasive power, 
according as its subject-matter has this inward ground of probability 
attaching to it or not. And this must apply to the evidences of the 
miracles which are the credentials of the Gospel dispensation. Accord- 
ing to our conception of the system of providence, and the place 
which miracles have in that system, their use and their probability, a 
difference must arise in the value of the historical evidence of those 
miracles. Nor is this a difference of imagination, but of reason; 
because, as has been said, it is a very law of evidence, that external 
evidence must be supplemented by antecedent probability. External 
or historical evidence has an intrinsic defect in it, for the purpose of 
full persuasion standing alone, without this internal auxiliary, because 
evidence is, by its very nature, a double thing, in which an outer 
part has its complement in an inner, and both together make 
the whole thing. Antecedent probability is a constitutional element 
oi evidence, and external testimony has reasonably a different weight, 
according as it comes to us with or without it. 

From this evidential law it is plain that those who, upon the 
assumption of certain principles, reject the evidence of the Gospel 
miracles, may, upon that assumption, be reasonable in that rejection ; 
and yet that those who, upon the assumption of other principles. 



xxvi Preface to Third Edition 

accept the evidence of the Gospel miracles may upon that assump- 
tion be quite reasonable in that acceptance. What is inadequate evi- 
dence to those who hold no belief in any power equal to produce 
miracles, or in any purpose to which they would apply, may be ade- 
quate, and reasonably adequate, to those who proceed upon a belief 
in both of these points. These two schools of minds live indeed in 
different universes ; and what has or has not, in their eyes, a natural 
place in the universe, must depend upon, what conception of the 
universe they entertain. As has been observed elsewhere — 

" The primary ideas and sentiments which constitute natural 
religion are a legitimate basis for the mind to proceed upon in its 
estimate of the proof of revelation ; they correspond to the principles 
in special departments of knowledge, which enable those who are 
acquainted with those departments to judge of evidence on matters 
belonging to them ; only with this difference, that the principles of 
science ultimately compel universal reception ; the moral set of 
principles does not. But this distinction does not interfere with the 
right of assertion, as regards those principles, on the part of those 
who have them ; they have a right to assert as truth what is irre- 
sistibly true to themselves and which others cannot disprove. Those 
who find these original convictions in them, have a right to appeal 
to them as their starting-points and their reasoning base. They 
cannot of course appeal to their own original belief as binding others, 
but they can appeal to it as the full justification of themselves, and 
of that favourable attitude towards revelation which may be drawn 
from it. Such a primary belief is, therefore, a strictly philosophical 
premiss, for the purpose for which it is used. Were it used indeed 
for the purpose of proving revelation to those in whom the belief 
does not exist, no premiss could be more unphilosophical : but it 
is not used for this purpose ; it is only used for the purpose of 
recommending revelation to ourselves, and to others who have the 
same primary belief with ourselves, and for this purpose it is a philo- 
sophical premiss." {Quarterly Review, July 1870.) 

Dr. Newman has drawn attention, in his Grammar of Assent, to 
this property of the antecedent ground, among the principles of 
evidence ; adding to his forcible explanation of it, the valuable rule 
and memento, that the real argumentative weight of antecedent pre- 
mises must lie in those premises as they actually exist in the 
individual's mind, and not as they are presented in propositions. 
This is very obvious when it is stated, and yet it requires to be 
stated, or the truth will not occur to us. Men of philosophical pre- 
tensions, who, upon their own premises, reject the evidences of revela- 
tion, think they can completely understand and grasp the antecedent 
premises of believers, because these are expressed in intelligible pro- 



Preface to Third Edition xxvii 

positions ; and they infer that, understanding them, they can decide 
conclusively upon the inadequacy of them. But these persons are 
labouring under a mistake all the time in supposing that they do know 
what these premises really are. They are what they are in the 
minds of those who hold them. But they do not know what that is ; 
nor therefore do they know their depth, their force, their stringency, 
the weight they carry with them in the balance of reason, as they 
exist in the individual's mind. They are at liberty then to speak 
for themselves, and to say, that they are obliged, upon their ante- 
cedent premises, to reject the evidences of revelation ; but they 
cannot say that it is unreasonable in others to accept them upon 
theirs; because, in truth, they do not know theirs; they know them 
in words and phrases, but they do not know them as they really 
exist in life and fact. Take, e.g., to quote from the same quarter 
again — the sense of sin. 



" This is a knowledge which those who possess it start with as an 
advantage in the estimate of the Christian revelation : i.e. they have a 
right to say that they do. It is not knowledge in a scientific sense, 
but it is knowledge in such a sense as that those who have it are in- 
stinctively assured that they are in possession of some truth, and are 
influenced by it in their judgment of Bevelation and its proof. It is 
knowledge, so far as it is a kind of insight, partial but real as far as it 
goes, into the nature of something, in which we are fundamentally 
concerned, and on which God's dealings with us in Bevelation pro- 
fess to hinge. It corresponds, in its place and results, to a principle 
of knowledge in some special department. It is impossible not to 
see what a strong root of Christian conviction and belief, what an in- 
troduction to the Christian dispensation, this sense of sin in the mind 
of St. Paul was. St. Paul filled two remarkable places ; he was at 
once the first philosophical teacher of Christianity, and the first great 
convert of promulgated Christianity. What is the most conspicuous 
premiss, then, which we observe working in his mind, to beget his 
belief in the Christian dispensation, and assure him of its being a real 
authentic revelation from God ? We see it in the epistles which suc- 
ceeded his conversion. It is the sense of sin. The apprehension of 
the tremendous, mysterious fact of sin, pervades all his epistles, as 
the great preliminary to the acceptance of the Gospel. It was an 
assurance in his mind, which was of the nature of a profound know- 
ledge, answering to the accurate acquaintance with some truth in 
some special department. Could any human being have persuaded 
St. Paul that he knew no more about sin than GaLLio or Herod, and 
that he and the Sadducee Ananias stood exactly on the same level 
upon this article of knowledge ? He felt he had a knowledge of this 
fubject which other people had not. This formed the basis of the 
Christianity which he preached and propagated ; and if he persuaded 



xxviii Preface to Third Edition 

himself by the same arguments by which he persuaded others, it was 
the basis of his own conversion to Christianity." — Quarterly Review, 
July 1870. 

The logical position therefore of the Christian and infidel toward 
each other is this : one of the parties taking certain fundamental per- 
ceptions — or what appear to him to be such — which form the sub- 
stance of natural religion as his starting-points, and judging from 
them as a reasoning base, accepts from that base of judgment the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Can the other refute his inference ? He can- 
not, for he does not know his base. He knows the truths of natural 
religion in the form of propositions ; he cannot possibly know them 
as they exist in the individual's mind. He cannot know then how 
much legitimate force they exert in the estimate of the evidences of 
revelation. Can he then disprove the principles themselves ? He 
cannot, for they are not in opposition to any known truth ; while the 
immense concurrence in them, and the general homage paid to them, 
protects them from, the charge of fanaticism. The conclusion upon 
the premises then, and the premises themselves, are alike out of 
reach of his refutation ; the acceptance of the Christian evidences 
upon the assumption of natural religion, and natural religion itself, 
are alike safe from the disputant's assault. 

It is thus that the argument as to evidences tends to a standstill- 
approaches to a posture of the two parties toward each other, in 
which neither upon his own premises can refute the other upon his ; 
or force his own conclusion upon the other, their respective ante- 
cedent grounds remaining the same. How could we expect those 
wmo do not hold the principles of natural religion to accept the 
historical evidences of Christianity 1 They are wanting in th ose inward 
antecedent convictions which are a necessary complement of external 
evidence, and without wmich all external evidence cannot obtain an 
entrance into a mind. But at the same time the corollary from this 
is that the rejection of Christianity by such minds can never be 
urged as a reflection upon Christianity, because, indeed, such minds 
have not the full argument for Christianity before them. They 
are not in possession of it, because they have cut themselves off from 
the foundation ; and therefore there is nothing upon which the edifice 
of Christian belief can grow up in them. The Comtist treats as 
utter delusions and mistakes the ideas of a God, of prayer, of im- 
mortality ; he declares that the assertion that these are instincts 
of human nature, is false ; that human nature has not got these 
instincts, and has no such longings, and feels no such wants ; that 



Preface to Third Edition xxix 

human nature cannot only do without them, but that, where they 
are not artificially inserted in it by false training and education, 
it does do without them. But how can the rejection of Christianity 
by those who are without a necessary part of the evidences for 
Christianity — viz., the preliminary convictions, be urged as any 
difficulty, or as a fact which tells against Christianity. 

In this stationary attitude then of the two parties to each other in 
the argument of miracles, there has sprung up on the side of the 
opponent of miracles what he regards as the argument of history. 
The controversialist who uses this argument abandons reasoning; 
he does not even weigh evidence ; all he does is to state facts. He 
asserts that, as a matter of fact, the pretension to exercise supernatural 
power has gradually declined, and been given up in civilized society ; 
that magic, witchcraft, and other forms of superhuman agency have 
become obsolete, have ceased to retain their hold on the actual belief 
of mankind ; and that the continuance of these claims has been found 
in fact inconsistent with human progress and advancement. Could 
anything, however extraordinary, it is asked, happen now, of which 
all reasonable persons would not agree to wait for a physical explana- 
tion, instead of attributing it to a supernatural cause ? This is a 
change, then, it is asserted, and a transition of fact, that we are going 
through ; argument does not affect this change in the mind of society ; 
these pretensions were given up in the actual belief of mankind, even 
at the very time that they retained their place in reasoning and philo- 
sophy ; the human mind is yielding to laws of progress, which even 
its own intellectual opposition cannot stop; and faith in these claims 
has retreated before the influence of civilization. 

But such being the argument against the supernatural deduced 
from actual history, and the known change in human belief ; I must 
observe that there is one broad line of distinction which separates 
all this purposeless, trifling, and low supernatural, — magic, witchcraft, 
and the like, from the miraculous credentials of the Christian revela- 
tion ; viz., that, as a matter of fact, while the belief in the former 
has become obsolete, the belief in the other has continued, and stood 
its ground. The belief in the Christian miracles has now possession 
of the mass of society, educated as well as uneducated. This, then, 
is an answer from fact to an argument from fact : the argument is 
that much belief in supernatural has gone with civilization, and the 
answer is that the belief in the Christian miracles continues with civi- 
lization. It is indeed true that the very first instinct of a rational mind 
at this day, on hearing the description of that supernaturalism which 
characterized rude ages, is to say — this cannot be true : such trivial, 



xxx Preface to Third Edition 

mean, and objectless crowds of miracles, as those of old magic and 
witchcraft, must be false : the order of nature is a solemn fact, and 
the interference with it must be, under the Divine Providence, a 
solemn fact too. The current supernaturalism then of rude ages is 
disbelieved. But the miraculous basis of Christianity is accepted. 
One fact then is met by another fact : the fact of mankind's disbelief 
is met by the fact of mankind's belief. It may be replied, indeed, 
that the distinction which is now maintained between the Christian 
supernatural and the vulgar is illogical, and will not be found 
capable of being upheld. But that is to reason ; and the new form 
of argument excludes reasoning, and ties itself to fact. It is the 
peculiar boast of the new controversial ground — that it does not argue 
but only state. The fact is stated then that legendary supernatural 
is abandoned ; and that is met by the counter fact that the Christian 
supernaturalism is retained. "We have reasoning to offer if the law 
of the argument allows it ; but if it is the very merit of this new argu- 
ment that it settles the question by the statement of facts ; that is 
the aggressive fact, and this is the defensive fact ; and the one fact 
as a refutation of the Christian miracles, is directly answered by the 
other fact in support of them. The belief in legendary super- 
naturalism has been practically given up in educated society for 
nearly two centuries ; and yet with the full consciousness of this 
abandonment of a large region of professed supernatural agency, the 
Christian miracles have continued to be believed. The distinction 
has been maintained, it has kept its ground, and it has sustained a 
long period of trial, during which the most intelligent and acute 
minds, fully alive to the progress which the human intellect had made 
in throwing off superstitious belief in superhuman agency, have 
nevertheless firmly maintained the belief in the miracles of Chris- 
tianity. This is a fact of history, and an existing fact of society ; 
and it is an express reply to the other fact for the purpose for which 
that fact is used. 1 

1 See Sbte 5, Lect. VIL 



CONTENTS 

LECTUEE I 

MIRACLES NECESSARY FOR A REVELATION 

St. John xv. 24 

If I had not done among them the works that none other man lid, ^ 
they had not had sin. 

LECTUEE II 

ORDER OF NATURE 

Gen. viii. 22 

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and 
dimmer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. 

LECTUEE III 

INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF 

Psalm cxxxix. 14 
Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. 

LECTUEE IV 

BELIEF IN A GOD 

Hebrews xi. 3 

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by 
the word of God. 



xxxii Contents 



LECTUEE V 

TESTIMONY 

Acts i. 8 

Ye shall he witnesses unto Me loth in Jerusalem, and in all Judcwi, and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. 

LECTUEE VJ 

UNKNOWN LAW 
St. John v. 17 

My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 

LECTUEE VII 

MIRACLES EEGAEDED IX THEIR PRACTICAL RESULT 
Romans vi. 17 

But God he thanTced, that ye were the servants of sin, hut ye have obeyed 
from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 



LECTUEE VIII 

FALSE MIRACLES 

Matt. vii. 22 

Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils ? and in Thy name 
done many wonderful works t 



LECTURE I 

MIRACLES NECESSARY FOR A REVELATION 

St. John xv. 24 

If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, 
they had not had sin. 

HOW is it that sometimes when the same facts and 
truths have been before men all their lives, and pro- 
duced but one impression, a moment comes when they 
look different from what they did? Some minds may 
abandon, while others retain, their fundamental position 
with respect to those facts and truths, but to both they 
look stranger; they excite a certain surprise which they 
did not once do. The reasons of this change then it is not 
always easy for the persons themselves to trace, but of the 
result they are conscious; and in some this result is a 
change of belief. 

An inward process of this kind has been going on re- 
cently in many minds on the subject of miracles ; and in 
some with the latter result. When it came to the question 
— which every one must sooner or later put to himself on 
this subject — did these things really take place ? are they 
matters of fact ? they have appeared to themselves to be 
brought to a standstill, and to be obliged to own an inner 
refusal of their whole reason to admit them among the 
actual events of the past. This strong repugnance seemed 
to be the witness of its own truth, to be accompanied by a 

A 



2 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

clear and vivid light, to be a law to the understanding, and 
to rule without appeal the question of fact. 

This intellectual movement against miracles is partly 
owing, doubtless, to the advance of science withdrawing 
minds from moral grounds and fixing them too exclusively 
upon physical. I am not sure, however, that too much 
has not been made of science as the cause in this case ; 
because, as a matter of fact, we see persons who are but 
little acquainted with physical science just as much op- 
posed to miracles as those who know most about it ; and 
for a very good reason. For it is evident that the objection 
which is felt against miracles does not arise from any 
minute knowledge of the laws of nature, or any elaborate 
analysis which has shewn the connexion of those laws, 
traced them farther back, and resolved them into higher 
and simpler laws ; but simply because they are opposed to 
that plain and obvious order of nature which everybody 
sees. That a man should rise from the dead, e.g. is plainly 
contradictory to our experience ; therein lies the difficulty 
of believing it ; and that experience belongs to everybody 
as much as to the deepest philosopher. 

A cause, which has had just as much to do with it as 
science, is what I may call the historical imagination. By 
the historical imagination I mean the habit of realizing 
past time, of putting history before ourselves in such a 
light that the persons and events figuring in it are seen as 
once-living persons and once-present events. This is in 
itself a high and valuable power, and it is evident that 
there is too little of it in the mass of men, to whom the 
past is a figured surface rather than an actual extension 
backward of time, in which the actors had all the feelings 
of the hour and saw it passing by them as we do, — the 
men who were then alive in the world, the men of the day. 
The past is an inanimate image in their minds, which does 
not beat with the pulse of life. And this want of reality 



I] for a Revelation 3 

attaching to the time, certain occurrences in it do not raise 
the questionings, which those very occurrences realized 
would raise. But a more powerful imagination enahles a 
man in some way to realize the past, and to see in it the 
once-living present; so that when he comes across any 
scene of history, he can bring it home to himself that this 
scene was once present, that this was the then living world. 
But when the reality of the past is once apprehended and 
embraced, then the miraculous occurrences in it are rea- 
lized too : being realized they excite surprise ; and surprise, 
when it once comes in, takes two directions; it either 
makes belief more real, or it destroys belief. There is an 
element of doubt in surprise ; for this emotion arises because 
an event is strange, and an event is strange because it goes 
counter to and jars with presumption. Shall surprise then 
give life to belief or stimulus to doubt ? The road of belief 
and unbelief in the history of some minds thus partly lies 
over common ground; the two go part of their journey to- 
gether ; they have a common perception in the insight into 
the real astonishing nature of the facts with which they 
deal. The majority of mankind perhaps owe their belief 
rather to the outward influence of custom and education 
than to any strong principle of faith within ; and it is to be 
feared that many if they came to perceive how wonderful 
what they believed was, would not find their belief so easy 
and so matter-of-course a thing as they appear to find it. 
Custom throws a film over the great facts of religion, and 
interposes a veil between the mind and truth, which, by 
preventing wonder, intercepts doubt too, and at the same 
time excludes from deep belief and protects from disbelief. 
But deeper faith and disbelief throw off in common the 
dependence on mere custom, draw aside the interposing 
veil, place themselves face to face with the contents of the 
past, and expose themselves alike to the ordeal of wonder. 
I would, however, give a passing caution against one 



4 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

mistake which a mind gifted with an historical imagination 
is apt to. commit. Such a mind raises a clear and vivid 
picture of a particular period, imagines the persons acting 
and speaking, calls up a perfect scene, and fills it with the 
detail of actual life. The world which it thus pictures, it 
then assimilates, with allowance for externals, to the world 
of the present day, translating character and motives, 
actions and events into a modern type, in order to make 
them look real and living. If the period, then, into which 
this mind has transported itself be that of the first promul- 
gation of the Gospel, the miraculous events of that epoch 
are imagined and pictured as the kind of supernatural 
events which, if they made their appearance at the present 
day, would receive a natural explanation. The person I 
am supposing has hitherto, then, made no mistake of fact, 
because he has only raised a picture, and only professed to 
do so. But just at this juncture he is apt to make, una- 
wares, a mistake of fact ; i.e. to suppose, because he has 
transported himself in imagination to the world of a distant 
age, that therefore he has seen that world and its contents, 
and to mistake a picture for reality. It seems to him as if 
he could bring back a report from thence, and assure us 
that nothing really took place in that world of the nature 
that we suppose. But in truth he no more knows by this 
process of the imagination what took place in that world, 
than another person knows: for we cannot in this way 
ascertain facts. The imagination assumes knowledge, and 
does not make it : it vivifies the stock we have, but does 
not add one item to it. The supposition — ' Had we lived 
in the world at that time we should have seen that there 
was nothing more miraculous in it then than there is now' 
— carries a certain persuasiveness with it to some ; but it 
is a mere supposition. They may by an effort of mind 
have raised a vivid image of the past, but they have not 
gained the least knowledge of its events by this act. That 



I] for a Revelation 



world has now passed away and cannot be recalled. But 
certain things are said to have taken place in it. Whether 
those events did take place or not must depend on the tes- 
timony which has come down to us. 

With this prefatory notice of a prevalent intellectual 
feature of the day, — for this effort to realize the past, to 
make it look like yesterday, does not only characterize in- 
dividual writers, but is part of the thought of the age, — I 
enter upon the consideration of the position which I have 
chosen as the subject of these Lectures ; viz., that Miracles, 
or visible suspensions of the order of nature for a provi- 
dential purpose, are not in contradiction to reason. And, 
first of all, I shall enquire into the use and purpose of 
miracles, — especially with a view to ascertain whether in 
the execution of the Divine intentions toward mankind, 
they do not answer a necessary purpose, and supply a want 
which could not be supplied in any other way. 

There is one great necessary purpose, then, which divines 
assign to miracles, viz,, the proof of a revelation. And 
certainly, if it was the will of God to give a revelation, 
there are plain and obvious reasons for asserting that 
miracles are necessary as the guarantee arid voucher for 
that revelation. A revelation is, properly speaking, such 
only by virtue of telling us something which we could not 
know without it. But how do we know that that commu- 
nication of what is undiscoverable by human reason is true ? 
Our reason cannot prove the truth of it, for it is by the 
very supposition beyond our reason. There must be, then, 
some note or sign to certify to it and distinguish it as a 
true communication from God, which note can be nothing 
else than a miracle. 

The evidential function of a miracle is based upon the 
common argument of design, as proved by coincidence. 
The greatest marvel or interruption of the order of nature 
occurring by itself, as the very consequence of being con- 



6 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

nected with nothing, proves nothing ; but if it takes place 
in connexion with the word or act of a person, that coinci- 
dence proves design in the marvel, and makes it a miracle; 
and if that person professes to report a message or revela- 
tion from heaven, the coincidence again of the miracle with 
the professed message from God proves design on the part 
of God to warrant and authorize the message. The mode 
in which a miracle acts as evidence is thus exactly the 
same in which any extraordinary coincidence acts : it rests 
upon the general argument of design, though the particular 
design is special and appropriate to the miracle. And 
hence we may see that the evidence of a Divine communi- 
cation cannot in the nature of the case be an ordinary 
event. For no event in the common order of nature is in 
the first place in any coincidence, with the Divine commu- 
nication : it is explained by its own place in nature, and is 
connected with its own antecedents and consequents only, 
having no allusion or bearing out of them. It does not 
either in itself, or to human eye, contain any relation to 
the special communication from God at the time. But if 
there is no coincidence, there is no appearance of design, 
and therefore no attestation. It is true that prophecy is 
such an attestation, but though the event which fulfils pro- 
phecy need not be itself out of the order of nature, it is an 
indication of a fact which is ; viz., an act of superhuman 
knowledge. And this remark would apply to a miracle 
which was only miraculous upon the prophetical principle, 
or from the extraordinary coincidence which was contained 
in it. And hence it follows that could a complete physical 
solution be given of a whole miracle, both the marvel and 
the coincidence too, it would cease from that moment to 
perform its function of evidence. Apparent evidence to 
those who had made the mistake, it could be none to us 
who had corrected it. 

It will be urged, perhaps, that extraordinary coincidences 



I ] for a Revelation 



take place in the natural course of providence, which are 
called special providences ; and that these are regarded as 
signs and tokens of the Divine will, though they are not 
visible interferences with the order of nature. But special 
providences, though they convey some, do not convey full 
evidence of, design. Coincidence is a matter of degree, and 
varies from the lowest degree possible to the fullest and 
highest. In whatever degree, therefore, a coincidence may 
appear in the events of the world, or in the events of private 
life, in that degree it is a direction, to whomsoever it is 
evident, to see the finger of God either in public affairs or 
in his own ; and to draw a lesson, or it may be to adopt a 
particular course of conduct, in consequence. But it is of 
the nature of a miracle to give proof, as distinguished from 
mere surmise, of a Divine design ; and therefore the most 
complete and decisive kind of coincidence alone is miracu- 
lous. 

It must be observed, however, that a special providence 
is an indication of a special Divine design, to whatever ex- 
tent it is so, only as being an indication of extraordinary 
Divine agency somewhere ; for from the ordinary nothing 
special would have been inferred. But extraordinary Divine 
agency partakes substantially of a miraculous character; 
though that character is not placed directly before our 
eyes, but is only gathered from such marks of coincidence 
as the events in the case exhibit. The point at which the 
Divine power comes into contact with the chain of natural 
causation is remote, and comparatively hidden; but still 
however high up in the succession of nature, such, extraor- 
dinary agency is, at the point at which it does occur, pre- 
ternatural ; because by nature we mean God's general law, 
or usual acts. A special providence thus differs from a 
miracle in its evidence, not in its nature ; it is an invisible 
miracle, which is indirectly traceable by means of some 
remarkable concurrences in the events before us. If a 









8 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

marvel is commanded or announced, or even what is not a 
marvel but only a striking event (such as sudden cure of a 
bad disease), and it takes place immediately, the coinci- 
dence is too remarkable to be accounted for in any other 
way than design. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
the dividing of the Red Sea, and other miracles which were 
wrought by the medium of natural agency, were miracles 
for this reason. But in the case of a special providence, 
the coincidence suggests but does not compel this interpre- 
tation. The death of Arius, e.g. was not miraculous, be- 
cause the coincidence of the death of an heresiarch taking 
place when it was peculiarly advantageous to the orthodox 
faith, to which it would have been advantageous at any 
time, was not such as to compel the inference of extraordi- 
nary Divine agency ; but it was a special providence, be- 
cause it carried a reasonable appearance of it. The miracle 
of the Thundering Legion was a special providence, but not 
a miracle for the same reason, because the coincidence of 
an instantaneous fall of rain with public prayer for it car- 
ried some appearance, but not proof, of preternatural 
agency, especially in the climate where the occurrence 
happened. Where there is no violation of physical law, 
the more surprising and inexplicable must be the coinci- 
dence in events in order to constitute the proof of extra- 
ordinary Divine agency; and therefore in that class of 
miracles which consists of answers to prayer, the most un- 
accountable kind of coincidence alone can answer the pur- 
pose. And the same principle applies to other miracles. 
The appearance of the cross to Constantine was a miracle 
or a special providence, according to which account of it 
we adopt. As only a meteoric appearance in the shape of 
a cross, without the adjuncts, it gave some token of preter- 
natural agency, but not full evidence. 

It may be conceded, indeed, that the truths which are 
communicated in a revelation might "be conveyed to tin? 



I] for a Revelation 



human mind without a visible miracle: and upon this 
ground it has appeared to some that a revelation does not 
absolutely require miracles, but might be imparted to the 
mind of the person chosen to be the recipient of it by an 
inward and invisible process alone. But to suppose upon 
this ground that miracles are not necessary for a revelation 
is to confound two things which are perfectly distinct; 
viz., the ideas themselves which are communicated in a 
revelation, and the proof that those ideas are true. For 
simply imparting ideas to the human mind, or causing 
ideas to arise in the human mind, an ordinary act of Divine 
power is sufficient, for God can put thoughts into men's 
minds by a process altogether secret, and without the ac- 
companiment of any external sign, and it is a part of His 
ordinary providence to do so. And in the same way in 
which He causes an idea of an ordinary kind to arise in a 
person's mind, He could also cause to arise an extraordi- 
nary idea ; for though the character of the ideas themselves 
would differ, the process of imparting them would be the 
same. But, then, when the extraordinary idea was there, 
what evidence would there be that it was true ? None : 
for the process of imparting it being wholly secret, all that 
the recipient of it could possibly then know, would be that 
he had the idea, that it was in his mind ; but that the idea 
was in his mind would not prove in the least that it was 
true. Let us suppose, e.g., that the idea was imparted to 
the mind of a particular person that an atonement had been 
made for the sins of the whole world, and that the Divine 
power stopped with the act of imparting that idea and went 
no further. The idea, then, of a certain mysterious event 
having taken place has been imparted to him and he has 
it, but so far from that person being able to give proof of 
that event to others, he would not even have received evi- 
dence of it himself. In an enthusiastic mind, indeed, the 
rise, without anything to account for it, of the idea that 



io Miracles necessary [Lect. 

such an event had taken place, might of itself produce the 
belief that it had, and be taken as witness to its own truth ; 
but it could not reasonably constitute such a guarantee, 
even to himself, and still less to others. 

The distinction may be illustrated by a case of prophecy. 
It was divinely communicated to the ancient prophet that 
Tyre or Babylon should be destroyed, or that Israel should 
be carried into captivity ; and in this communication itself 
there was nothing miraculous, because the idea of the 
future destruction of a city, and of the future captivity of 
a people, could be raised in the mind of a prophet by the 
same process by which God causes a natural thought to 
arise in a person's mind. But then the mere occurrence of 
this idea to the prophet would be no proof that it was true. 
In the case of prophecy, then, the simple event which ful- 
fils it is the proof of the truth of that idea ; but this kind 
of proof does not apply to the case of a revelation of a 
doctrine, which must therefore have another sort of guar- 
antee. 

If, then, a person of evident integrity and loftiness of 
character rose into notice in a particular country and com- 
munity eighteen centuries ago, who made these communi- 
cations about himself — that he had existed before his 
natural birth, from all eternity, and before the world was, 
in a state of glory with God ; that he was the only-begotten 
Son of God ; that the wcild itself had been made by him ; 
that he had, however, come down from heaven and assumed 
the form and nature of man for a particular purpose, viz., 
to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the 
world; that he thus stood in a mysterious and superna- 
tural relation to the whole of mankind ; that through him 
alone mankind had access to God ; that he was the head 
of an invisible kingdom, into which he should gather all 
the generations of righteous men who had lived in the 
world ; that on his departure from hence he should return 



I] for a Revelation 1 1 

to heaven to prepare mansions there for them ; and lastly, 
that he should descend again at the end of the world to 
judge the whole human race, on which occasion all that 
were in their graves should hear his voice and come forth, 
they that had done good unto the resurrection of life, and 
they that had done evil unto the resurrection of damna- 
tion, — if this person made these assertions about himself, 
and all that was done was to make the assertions, what 
would be the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respect- 
ing that person ? The necessary conclusion of sober reason 
respecting that person would be that he was disordered in 
his understanding. What other decision could we come to 
when a man, looking like one of ourselves and only exem- 
plifying in his life and circumstances the ordinary course 
of nature, said this about himself, but that when reason 
had lost its balance, a dream of extraordinary and un- 
earthly grandeur might be the result ? By no rational 
being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof 
of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the 
necessary complement then of the truth of such announce- 
ments, which without them are purposeless and abortive, 
the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing un- 
less it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification 
of such announcements, which indeed, unless they are 
supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions. The matter 
and its guarantee are the two parts of a revelation, the ab- 
sence of either of which neutralizes and undoes it. (i.) 

But would not a perfectly sinless character be proof of a 
revelation ? Undoubtedly that would be as great a miracle 
as any that could be conceived ; but where is the proof of 
perfect sinlessness ? No outward life and conduct, how- 
ever just, benevolent, and irreproachable, could prove this, 
because goodness depends upon the inward motive, and the 
perfection of the inward motive is not proved by the out- 
ward act. Exactly the same act may be perfect or imper- 



1 2 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

feet according to the spirit of the doer. The same language 
of indignation against the wicked which issues from our 
Lord's mouth might be uttered by an imperfect good man, 
who mixed human frailty with the emotion. We accept 
our Lord's perfect goodness then upon the same evidence 
upon which we admit the rest of His supernatural charac- 
ter; but not as proved by the outward goodness of His 
life, by His character, sublime as that was, as it presented 
itself to the eye. 

On the subject, however, of the necessity of miracles to 
a revelation, the ground has been taken by some that this 
necessity is displaced by the strength of the internal evi- 
dence of Christianity. And first, it is urged that the in- 
trinsic nature of the doctrines, and their adaptation to the 
human heart, supplies of itself the proof of their truth. 

But the proof of a revelation which is contained in the 
substance of a revelation has this inherent check or limit 
in it, viz., that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by 
reason. Internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, be- 
cause at every step the test is our own appreciation of such 
and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fit- 
ness ; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case 
prove that which, by the very hypothesis, lies beyond 
human reason. 

Let us take, e.g., the doctrine of the Incarnation. The 
idea of a union of the Divine nature with the human has 
approved itself to the mind of mankind as a grand and 
sublime idea ; in debased shapes it has prevailed in almost 
every religion of the heathen world, and it occupies a 
marked space in the history of human thought. The 
Christian doctrine appeals to every lofty aspiration of the 
human heart ; it exalts our nature, places us in intimate 
relation to God, and inspires us with a sense of His love. 
The human heart therefore responds to the doctrine of the 
Incarnation, and feels that doctrine to be adapted to it. 



I] for a Revelation 13 

But because the idea is thus adapted to it, is that a proof 
that it has been chosen in the Divine counsels to be put 
into execution ? No : it would be wild reasoning to infer 
from the sublimity of a supposition, as a mere conception 
of the mind, that that conception had been embodied in a 
Divine dispensation, and to conclude from a thought of 
man an act of God. To do this is to attribute to ourselves 
perceptions of the Divine will beyond our conscience ; i.e., 
to attribute to ourselves supernatural perceptions. So, 
again, that the human heart responds to an Atonement 
supposed to be revealed, is no proof that that Divine act 
has taken place ; because the human heart has no power 
by its mere longings of penetrating into the supernatural 
world, and seeing what takes place there. 

But the internal evidences of Christianity include, beside 
the intrinsic nature of the doctrines, the fruits of Christianity 
— its historical development. However necessary, it is said, 
the evidence of miracles was upon the first promulgation 
of the Gospel, when the new faith was but just sown, and 
its marvellous growth, its great results, its mighty conquests 
over the human heart were not yet before the eye, it is no 
longer necessary now, when we have these effects before us. 
This is a kind of proof then of a revelation which is peculiarly 
adapted to produce inward conviction — a persuasion of the 
truth of that religion which produces such results. 'No 
member of the Christian evidence taken singly has perhaps 
so much strength as this ; nor can we well rest too much 
upon it, so long as we do not charge it with more of the 
burden of proof than it is in its own nature equal to — viz. 
the whole. But that it cannot bear. If the sincere belief 
of persons in something does not prove that thing, can the 
natural consequences of that belief of themselves prove it ? 
If I am asked for the proof of a doctrine, and I say simply, 
" I believe it," that is obviously no proof; but if I go on to 
say, " This belief has had in my own case a connexion with 



14 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

devout practice," that alone is not adequate proof either, 
even though this connexion has taken place in others as 
well on a large scale. We can indeed in imagination con- 
ceive such a universal spread of individual holiness and 
goodness as would amount to a supernatural manifestation: 
as, e.g. if we supposed that the description of the Christian 
Church given in parts of prophecy was literally fulfilled, 
and "the people were all righteous." 1 But the actual 
result of Christianity is very different from this. There 
are two sides of the historical development of Christianity; 
one of success and one of failure. What proportion of 
nominal Christians in every age have been real Christians ? 
Has Christianity stopped war, persecution, tyranny, injustice, 
and the dominion of selfish passion in the world which it 
has professedly converted ? ISTo ; nor is that the fault of 
Christianity, but of man. But if the appeal is made to the 
result of Christianity as the proof of the supernatural truths 
of Christianity, we must take that result as it stands. 
What is that result ? It is that amidst the general deflec- 
tion of Christians from the Gospel standard, a certain 
number — so large indeed in comparison with the corres- 
ponding class among the heathen as to surprise us, but 
small as compared with the whole body — are seen in every 
age directing their lives upon religious principles and 
motives. But we cannot safely pronounce this to be a 
standing supernatural phenomenon, equivalent to, and 
superseding the need of miraculous evidence. Taken 
indeed in connexion with prophecy, the results of Chris- 
tianity stand upon a stronger ground as Christian evidence; 
but it must be remembered that this connexion introduces 
another element into the argument, different from and 
additional to the simple fact of the results, viz. the fulfil- 
ment of prophecy contained in them, — an element of proof 
which is in essence miraculous proof. (2.) 

1 Isaiah lx. 21. 



I] for a Revelation 1 5 

It must be remembered that when this part of Christian 
evidence comes so forcibly home to us, and creates that 
inward assurance which it does, it does this in connexion 
with the proof of miracles in the background; which 
though it may not for the time be brought into actual 
view, is still known to be there, and to be ready for use 
upon being wanted. The indirect proof from results has 
the greater force, and carries with it the deeper persuasion, 
because it is additional and auxiliary to the direct proof 
behind it upon which it leans all the time, though we may 
not distinctly notice and estimate this advantage. Were 
the evidence of moral result to be taken rigidly alone, as 
the one single guarantee for a Divine revelation, it would 
then be seen that we had calculated its single strength too 
highly. If there is a species of evidence which is directly 
appropriate to the thing believed, we cannot suppose, on 
the strength of the indirect evidence we possess, that we 
can do without the direct. But miracles are the direct 
credentials of a revelation ; the visible supernatural is the 
appropriate witness to the invisible supernatural — that 
proof which goes straight to the point, and, a token being 
wanted of a Divine communication, is that token. We 
cannot, therefore, dispense with this evidence. The position 
that the revelation proves the miracles, and not the 
miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning; 
but taken literally, it is a double offence against the rule, 
that things are properly proved by the proper proof of 
them; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a 
supernatural doctrine; while a supernatural doctrine, on 
the other hand, is certainly not the proper proof of a super- 
natural fact. 

But suppose a person to say, and to say with truth, that 
his own individual faith does not rest upon miracles; 
is he therefore released from the defence of miracles ? Is the 
question of their truth or falsehood an irrelevant one to him? 



1 6 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

Is his faith secure if they are disproved ? By no means : if 
miracles were, although only at the commencement, necessary 
to Christianity: and if they were actually wrought and there- 
fore form part of the Gospel record and are "bound up with 
the Gospel scheme and doctrines ; this part of the structure 
cannot be abandoned without the sacrifice of the other too. 
To shake the authority of one-half of this body of statement 
is to shake the authority of the whole. "Whether or not the 
individual makes use of them for the support of his own 
faith, the miracles are there; and if they are there they 
must be there either as true miracles or as false ones. If 
he does not avail himself of their evidence, his belief is 
still affected by their refutation. Accepting as he does the 
supernatural truths of Christianity and its miracles upon 
the same report, from the same witnesses, upon the authority 
of the same documents, he cannot help having at any rate 
this negative interest in them, For if those witnesses and 
documents deceive us with regard to the miracles, how can 
we trust them with regard to the doctrines? If they are 
wrong upon the evidences of a revelation, how can we 
depend upon their being right as to the nature of that- 
revelation ? If their account of visible facts is to be 
received with an explanation, is not their account of 
doctrines liable to a like explanation ? Eevelation then, 
even if it does not need the truth of miracles for the benefit 
of their proof, still requires it in order not to be crushed 
under the weight of their falsehood. 

Or do persons prefer resting doctrine upon the ground 
more particularly of tradition ? The result is still the same. 
For the Christian miracles are bound up inseparably with 
the whole corpus of Christian tradition. But if tradition 
has been mistaken with respect to facts, how can we trust 
it with respect to doctrines ? Indeed, not only are miracles 
conjoined with doctrine in Christianity, but miracles are 
inserted in the doctrine and are part of its contents. A 



I] for a Revelation 17 

man cannot state his belief as a Christian in the terms of 
the Apostles' Creed without asserting them. Can the 
doctrine of our Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one 
physical miracle ? Can the doctrine of His justification of 
us, and intercession for us, be disjoined from another ? 

This insertion of the great miracles of our Lord's life in 
the Christian Creed itself serves to explain some language 
in the Fathers which otherwise might be thought to indicate 
an inferior and ambiguous estimate of the effect of miracles 
as evidence. They sometimes speak of the miracles per- 
formed by our Lord during His ministry as if they were 
evidence of His mission rather as the fulfilment of prophecy, 
than upon their own account. Upon this head, then, it 
must be remembered, first, that to subordinate miracles as 
evidence to prophecy is not to supersede miraculous 
evidence ; for prophecy is one department of the miraculous. 
But, in the next place, the miraculous Birth of our Lord, 
His Besurrection and Ascension, were inserted in the Chris- 
tian Creed; which cardinal miracles being accepted, the 
lesser miracles of our Lord's ministry had naturally a sub- 
ordinate place as evidence. If a miracle is incorporated as 
an article in a creed, that article of the creed, the miracle, 
and the proof of it by a miracle, are all one thing. The 
great miracles therefore, upon the evidence of which the 
Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian 
Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the 
miraculous evidence of it. The doctrinal truth of the 
Atonement, its acceptance, and the enthronement of the 
Son of God in heaven at His Father's right hand, is indeed 
in the abstract separable from the visible miracles of the 
Besurrection and Ascension which were the evidence of it; 
but actually in the Christian Church this evidence of the 
doctrine is the very form of the doctrine too ; and the 
Fathers in holding the doctrine held the evidence of miracles 
to it, (3.) 

B 



1 8 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Chris- 
tianity must stand or fall together. These two questions — 
the nature of the revelation, and the evidence of the revela- 
tion — cannot be disjoined. Christianity as a dispensation 
undiscoverable by human reason, and Christianity as a dis- 
pensation authenticated by miracles — these two are in 
necessary combination. If any do not include the super- 
natural character of Christianity in their definition of it, re- 
garding the former only as one interpretation of it or one 
particular traditional form of it, which is separable from 
the essence, — for Christianity as thus defined, the support 
of miracles is not wanted, because the moral truths are their 
own evidence. But Christianity cannot be maintained as a 
revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation of 
a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the 
evidence of miracles. 

And hence it follows that upon the supposition of the 
Divine design of a revelation, a miracle is not an anomaly 
or irregularity, but part of the system of the universe ; be- 
cause, though an irregularity and an anomaly in relation to 
either part, it has a complete adaptation to the whole. 
There being two worlds, a visible and invisible, and a 
communication between the two being wanted, a miracle is 
the instrument of that communication. An exception to 
each order of things separately, it is in perfect keeping with 
both taken together, as being the link or medium between 
them. This is, indeed, the form and mode of order which 
belongs to instruments as a class. A key is out of relation, 
either to the inside or outside taken separately of the 
inclosure which it opens ; but it is in relation to both taken 
together as being the instrument of admission from the one 
to the other. Take any tool or implement of art, handicraft, 
or husbandry, and look at it by itself; what an eccentric 
and unmeaning thing it is, wholly out of order and place ; 
but it is in exact order and place as the medium between 



I] for a Revelation 19 

the workman and the material. And a miracle is in 
perfect order and place as the medium between two worlds, 
though it is an anomaly with respect to one of them 
alone. 

Spinoza, indeed, upon this ground of order, That nothing 
can be out of the order of the universe that takes place in 
the universe, denies the possibility of a miracle ; but the 
truth of this inference depends entirely on the definition we 
give of a miracle. If a miracle is defined to be something 
which contradicts the order of the whole, then, we admit 
that nothing which is out of the order of the whole can exist 
or take place, and therefore we allow that there can be no 
such thing as a miracle. But if a miracle is only a con- 
tradiction to one part, i.e. the visible portion of the whole, 
this conclusion does not follow. And thus, according as we 
define a miracle, this ground of universal order becomes 
either a ground for refuting the miraculous or a ground for 
defending it. The defect of Spinoza's view is that he will 
not look upon a miracle as an instrument, a means to an 
end, but will only look upon it as a marvel beginning and 
ending with itself. " A miracle," he says, " as an interrup- 
tion to the order of nature, cannot give us any knowledge 
of God, nor can we understand anything from it." (4.) 
It is true we cannot understand anything from an interrup- 
tion of the order of nature, simply as such; but if this 
interruption has an evidential function attaching to it, then 
something may be understood from it, and something of 
vast importance. 

We must admit, indeed, an inherent modification in the 
function of a miracle as an instrument of proof. To a 
simple religious mind not acquainted with ulterior con 
siderations a miracle appears to be immediate, conclusive, 
unconditional proof of the doctrine for which it is wrought; 
but, on reflection, we see that it is checked by conditions ; 
that it cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is 



20 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

contrary to our moral nature, or to a fundamental principle 
of religion. But this is only a limitation of the function of 
a miracle as evidence, and no disproof of it ; for conditions, 
though they interfere with the force of a principle where 
they are not complied with, do not detract from it where 
they are. We have constantly to limit the force of particulai 
principles, whether of evidence, or morals, or law, which at 
first strike us as absolute, but which upon examination are 
seen to be checked; but these principles still remain in 
substantial strength. Has not the authority of conscience 
itself checks and qualifications ? And were a person so 
disposed, could he not make out an apparent case against 
the use of conscience at all — that there were so many con- 
ditions from this quarter and the other quarter limiting it, 
that it was really left almost without value as a guide ? 
The same remark applies to some extent to the evidence of 
memory. The evidence of miracles, then, is not negatived 
because it has conditions. The question may at first sight 
create a dilemma — If a miracle is nugatory on the side of 
one doctrine, what cogency has it on the side of another \ 
Is it legitimate to accept its evidence when we please, and 
reject it when we please ? But in truth, a miracle is never 
without an argumentative force, although that force may be 
counterbalanced. Any physical force may be counteracted 
by an impediment, but it exists all the while, and resumes 
its action upon that impediment being removed. A miracle 
has a natural argumentative force on the side of that doctrine 
for which it is wrought ; if the doctrine is such that we 
cannot accept it, we resist the force of a miracle in that in- 
stance; still that force remains and produces its natural 
effect when there is no such obstruction. If I am obliged 
by the incredible nature of an assertion to explain the 
miracle for it upon another principle than the evidential, I 
do so ; but in the absence of this necessity, I give it its 
natural explanation. A rule gives way when there is an 



1 J for a Revelation 2 1 

exception to it made out ; but otherwise it stands. When 
we know upon antecedent grounds that the doctrine is 
false, the miracle admits of a secondary explanation, viz. as 
a trial of faith ; but the first and most natural explanation 
of it is still as evidence of the doctrine, and that remains 
in force when there is no intrinsic objection to the doctrine. 

When, then, a revelation is made to man by the only in- 
strument by which it can be made, that that instrument 
should be an anomaly, an irregularity relatively to this 
visible order of things, is necessary ; and all we are con- 
cerned with is its competency. Is it a good instrument ? 
is it effective ? does it answer its purpose ? does it do what 
it is wanted to do ? 

This instrument, then, has certainly one important note 
or token of a Divine instrument ; — it bears upon it the 
stamp of power. Does a miracle, regarded as mere prodigy 
or portent, appear to be a mean, rude, petty, and childish 
thing ? Turn away from that untrue because inadequate 
aspect of it, to that which is indeed the true aspect of a 
miracle. Look at it as an instrument, as a powerful instru- 
ment, as an instrument which has shewn and proved its 
power in the actual result of Christendom. Christianity is 
the religion of the civilized world, and it is believed upon 
its miraculous evidence. Now for a set of miracles to be 
accepted in a rude age, and to retain their authority 
throughout a succession of such ages, and over the ignorant 
and superstitious part of mankind, may be no such great 
result for the miracle to accomplish, because it is easy to 
satisfy those who do not inquire. But this is not the state 
of the case which we have to meet on the subject of the 
Christian miracles. The Christian being the most intelli- 
gent, the civilized portion of the world, these miracles are 
accepted by the Christian body as a whole, by the thinking 
and educated as well as the uneducated part of it, and the 
Gospel is believed upon that evidence. Allowance made 



22 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

for certain schools of thought in it, this age in which we 
live accepts the Christian miracles as the foundation of its 
faith. But this is a great result — the establishment and 
the continuance of a religion in the world, — as the religion 
too of the intelligent as well as of the simpler portion of 
society. Indeed, in connexion with this point, may we not 
observe that the evidence of miracles has been taken up by 
the most inquiring and considerate portion of the Christian 
body; by that portion especially which was anxious that its 
belief should be rational, and should rest upon evidence ? 
Of that great school of writers which has dealt with miracles, 
the conspicuous characteristics have been certainly no 
childish or superstitious love of the marvellous, but the 
judicial faculty, strong reasoning powers, strong critical 
powers, the power of estimating and weighing evidence. 
May we not then, when the miracle is represented as a mere 
childish desideratum, take these important circumstances 
into consideration, — the object which the Christian miracles 
have actually effected; their actual result in the world; 
the use which has been made of them by reasonable and 
reflecting minds; the source which they have been of 
reasonable and reflecting belief; their whole history, in 
short, as the basis, along with other considerations, of the 
Christian belief of the civilized world, educated and un- 
educated ? May we not call attention to the Gospel miracle 
in its actual working, — that it has been connected not with 
fanciful, childish, credulous, and superstitious, but with 
rational religion ; that it has been accepted by those whose 
determination it has been only to believe upon rational 
grounds ; that indeed, if there is a difference, it has been 
the instrument of conviction rather to the reasoning class 
of minds than the unreasoning. A miracle is in its own 
nature an appeal to the reason ; and its evidence contrasts 
in this respect with the mere influence of sentiment and 
tradition These are strong witnesses to the nature of a 



!] 



for a Revelation 2$ 



miracle as an instrument, and shew that a miracle is a great 
instrument, and worthy of the Divine employment. 

Tor — and this largely constitutes the greatness and 
efficacy of the instrument — the evidence of a miracle is not 
only contemporary with the miracle, but extends in the 
nature of the case through all subsequent ages into which 
the original testimony to such miracle is transmitted. The 
chain of testimony is indeed more and more lengthened out, 
and every fresh link which is added is a step further from 
the starting-point ; but so long as the original testimony 
reaches us, through however may links, the miracle which 
it attests is the same evidence that it ever was. Scientific 
men have sometimes, indeed, speculated upon the effect of 
time upon the value of historical evidence; practically 
speaking, however, between an event's first standing in re- 
gular history, and its very latest which is at this very 
moment, we see no difference. The testimony to the battle 
of Pharsalia is as strong now, as at its first insertion in the 
page of history ; nor can we entertain the notion of a time, 
however remote, when it will not be as strong as it is now. 
Whatever value, then, the testimony to the Christian 
miracles had when that testimony first took its place in 
public records, that it has now, and that it will continue to 
have so long as the world lasts. But such a prospect raises 
our estimate of the importance and the greatness of a 
miracle as an instrument indefinitely, for indeed we do not 
know its full effects, we are in the middle, or perhaps only 
as yet in the very beginning of its history as a providential 
engine for the preservation of a religion in the world. A 
miracle is remarkably adapted for the original propagation 
of a religion, but this is only its first work. The question 
must still always arise, and must be always rising afresh 
in every generation afterwards, — Why must I believe in 
this revelation ? So far, then, from the use of miracles 
being limited to a first start, even supposing a religion 



24 Miracles necessary [Lect. 

could spread at first by excitement and sympathy without 
them, a time must come when rational and inquiring minds 
would demand a guarantee ; and when that demand was 
made a miracle alone could answer it. The miracle then 
enters at its birth upon a long career, to supply ground for 
rational belief throughout all time. 

Mahometanism, indeed, established itself in the world 
without even any pretence on the part of its founder to 
miraculous powers. But the triumph of Mahometanism 
over human belief, striking as it has been, cannot blind us 
to the fact that the belief of the Mahometan is in its very 
principle irrational, because he accepts Mahomet's super- 
natural account of himself, as the conductor of a new dis- 
pensation, upon Mahomet's own assertion simply, joined to 
his success. (5.) But this belief is in its very form irra- 
tional ; and whatever may be the apparent present strength 
and prospects of Mahometanism, this defect must cling to 
its very foundation, with this corollary attaching to it, viz. 
that if the law of reason is allowed to work itself out in the 
history of human religions, the ultimate dissolution of the 
Mahometan fabric of belief is certain, because its very 
existence is an offence against that law. But the belief of 
the Christian is, at all events in form, a rational belief, 
which the Mahometan's is not ; because the Christian 
believes in a supernatural dispensation, upon the proper 
evidence of such a dispensation, viz. the miraculous. Ante- 
cedently, indeed, to all examination into the particulars of 
the Christian evidence, Christianity is the only religion in 
the world which professes to possess a body of direct exter- 
nal evidence to its having come from God. Mahometanism 
avows the want of this ; and the pretensions of other reli- 
gions to it are mockery. One religion alone produces a 
body of testimony — testimony doubtless open to criticism 
— but still solid, authentic, contemporaneous testimony, to 
miracles — a body of evidence which makes a stand, and 



I] for a Revelation 25 

upholds with, a natural and genuine strength certain 
facts. 

And in this distinction alone between Mahometanism 
and Christianity, we see a different estimate of the claims 
of reason, lying at the foundation of these two religions 
and entertained by their respective founders. Doubtless 
the founder of Mahometanism could have contrived false 
miracles had he chosen, but the fact that he did not con- 
sider miraculous evidence at all wanted to attest a super- 
natural dispensation, but that his word was enough, shews 
an utterly barbarous idea of evidence and a total miscal- 
culation of the claims of reason which unfits his religion 
for the acceptance of an enlightened age and people ; 
whereas the Gospel is adapted to perpetuity for this cause 
especially, with others, that it was founded upon a true 
calculation, and a foresight of the permanent need of evi- 
dence ; our Lord admitting the inadequacy of His own mere 
word, and the necessity of a rational guarantee to His re- 
velation of His own nature and commission. " If I had 
not done among them the works that none other man did, 
they had not had sin;" 1 "The works that I do bear wit- 
ness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me." 2 

1 St. John xv. 24. 2 Ibid. v. 36. 



LECTURE II 

ORDER OF NATURE 

Gkn. viii. 22. 

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and 
summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. 

¥HATEVEE difficulty there is in believing in miracles 
in general arises from the circumstance that they 
are in contradiction to or unlike the order of nature. To 
estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first 
understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the 
order of nature ; for the weight of the objection to the mir- 
aculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which 
the miraculous is opposed. 

And first, what is meant by the order of nature ? It 
will be answered, That succession and recurrence of physical 
events of which we have had experience. But this, though 
true as far as it goes, would be a very inadequate definition 
of what we mean by that important phrase — just omitting 
indeed the main point. For that order of nature which we 
assume in all our purposes and plans in life is not a past 
but a future. That which is actually known and has been 
observed is over and gone, and we have nothing more to 
do with it : it is that which has not come under our obser- 
vation, and which is as yet no part of our knowledge, which 
concerns us ; not yesterday's but to-morrow's state of the 
case. We entertain a certain belief respecting what will 
be the state of the case to-morrow with reference to the 



Order of Nature 2 7 

rising of the sun and other things : and that is the order of 
nature with which we are practically concerned, not that 
part of it which we know, but that part of it of which we 
are ignorant. 

What we mean, then, by the phrase ' order of nature ' is 
the connection of that part of the order of nature of which 
we are ignorant with that part of it which we know — the 
former being expected to be such and such hecause the 
latter is. But this being the case, how do we justify this 
expectation, i.e. how do we account for the belief in the 
order of nature ? 

This belief, then, is defined as consisting in an expecta- 
tion of likeness — that the unknown is like the known, that 
the utterly invisible future will be like the past. " This," 
says Bishop Butler, "is that presumption or probability 
from analogy expressed in the very word continuance which 
seems our only natural reason for believing the course of 
the world will continue to-morrow as it has done, so far as 
our experience and knowledge of history can carry us 
back." (1.) 

But though the fact is very obvious that we do expect 
the unknown to be like the known, the future like the 
past, why is it that we do ? on what ground does this ex- 
pectation arise ? whence is it " that likeness should beget 
this presumption ? " The answer to this question will decide 
the mental character of our belief in the uniformity of 
nature, and so enable us to estimate the weight of the 
objection to the miraculous thence arising. 

On asking ourselves the question, then, why we believe 
that the future order of nature will be like the past, why 
such and such a physical fact will go on repeating itself as 
it has done, say the rising of the sun, or the ebb and flow 
of the tide, our first impulse is to say that it is self-evident 
it will do so. But such a ground gives way upon a moment's 
reflection. We mean by self-evident that of which the 



28 0?'der of Nature [Lect. 

opposite is self-contradictory ; but though the fact that the 
sun rose to-day would be contradicted by the fact that it 
did not rise to-day, it is in no way contradicted by the fact 
that it will not rise to-morrow. These two facts are quite 
consistent with each other, as much so as any other two 
facts that could be mentioned. 

But though the connexion in our minds between the past 
recurrence of a physical fact up to this very day, and its 
future recurrence to-morrow, is not a self-evident one, is 
there any reason of any kind that can be assigned for it ? 
I apprehend that when we examine the different reasons 
which may be assigned for this connexion, i.e. for this 
belief that the future will be like the past, they all come 
at last to be mere statements of the belief itself, and not 
reasons to account for it. 

It may be said, e.g. that when a fact of nature has gone 
on repeating itself a certain time, such repetition shews 
that there is a permanent cause at work ; and that a per- 
manent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But 
what is there to shew the existence of a permanent cause ? 
Nothing. The effects which have taken place shew a cause 
at work to the extent of those effects, and those particular 
instances of repetition, but not at all further. That this 
cause is of a nature more permanent, than its existing or 
known effects, extending further, and about to produce 
other and more instances besides those it has produced 
already, we have no evidence. Why then do we expect 
with such certainty the further continuance of them ? We 
can only say, because we believe the future will be like the 
past. We have professed, then, to give a reason why we 
believe this, and we have only at last stated the fact that 
we do. 

Let us imagine the occurrence of a particular physical 
phenomenon for the first time. Upon that singular occur- 
rence we should have but the very faintest expectation of 



II] Order of Nature 29 

another. If it did occur again once or twice, so far from 
counting on another recurrence, a cessation would come as 
the more natural event to us. But let it occur a hundred 
times and we should feel no hesitation in inviting persons 
from a distance to see it ; and if it occurred every day for 
years, its recurrence would then be a certainty to us, its 
cessation a marvel. But what has taken place in the in- 
terim to produce this total change in our belief ? From the 
id ere repetition do we know anything more about its cause? 
ISTo. Then what have we got besides the past repetition 
itself ? Nothing. Why then are we so certain of its future 
repetition ? All we can say is that the known casts its 
shadow before ; we project into unborn time the existing 
types, and the secret skill of nature intercepts the darkness 
of the future by ever suspending before our eyes, as it were 
in a mirror, a reflexion of the past. We really look at a 
blank before us, but the mind, full of the scene behind, 
sees it again in front. 

Or is it to give a reason why we believe that the order 
of nature will be like what it has been, to say that we do 
not know of this constancy of nature at first, but that we 
get to know it by experience ? What do we mean by know- 
ing from experience ? We cannot mean that the future 
tacts of nature have fallen within our experience, or under 
our cognizance ; for that would be to say that a future fact 
is a past fact. We can only mean, then, that from our 
past experience of the facts of nature, we form our expecta- 
tion of the future ; which is the same as saying that we 
believe the future will be like the past : but to say this is 
not to give a reason for this belief, but only to state it. 

Or do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in 
the future to say that though " no man has had experience 
of what is future, every man has had experience of what 
ivas future ? " This is a true assertion, but it does not help 
us at all out of the present difficulty, because the confidence 



Order of Nature [Lect. 



of which we speak relates not to what was future, but to 
what is future. It is true, indeed, that what is future 
becomes at every step of our advance what was future, but 
that which is now still future, is not the least altered by 
that circumstance ; it is as invisible, as unknown, and as 
unexplored as if not one single moment of the past had 
preceded it, and as if it were the very beginning and the 
very starting-point of nature. Let any one place himself 
in imagination at the first commencement of this course of 
nature, at the very first opening of the great roll of time, 
before any of its contents had been disclosed, — what would 
he know of the then future course of nature ? Nothing. 
At this moment he knows no more of its future course dat- 
ing from this moment. However at each present instant 
the future emerges into light, this only moves forward the 
starting-point of darkness; at every fresh step into the 
future the future begins afresh, and is as unknown a future 
as ever, behind the same impenetrable veil which has 
always hid it. Whatever time converts into the known 
we are always on the confines of the unknown ; and what- 
ever tracts of this country we discover, the rest is as much 
undiscovered ground as ever. That " every man then has 
had experience of what was future," is no reason for his 
confidence in what is future, except upon one assumption, 
viz. that the future will be like the past. But, such being 
so, this professed reason for the belief in question does not 
account for it, but assumes it. 

What ground of reason, then, can we assign for our 
expectation that any part of the course of nature will the 
next moment be like what it has been up to this moment, 
i.e. for our belief in the uniformity of nature ? None. 
No demonstrative reason can be given, for the contrary to 
the recurrence of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No 
probable reason can be given, for all probable reasoning 
respecting the course of nature is founded upon this pre- 



II] Order of Nature 31 

sumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the founda- 
tion of it. No reason can be given for this belief. It is 
without a reason. It rests upon no rational ground and 
can be traced to no rational principle. Everything con- 
nected with human life depends upon this belief, every 
practical plan or purpose that we form implies it ; every 
provision we make for the future, every safeguard and cau- 
tion we employ against it, all calculation, all adjustment of 
means to ends, supposes this belief; it is this principle 
alone which renders our experience of the slightest use to 
us, and without it there would be, so far as we are con- 
cerned, no order of nature and no laws of nature ; and yet 
this belief has no more producible reason for it, than a 
speculation of fancy. A natural fact has been repeated ; it 
will be repeated : — I am conscious of utter darkness when 
I try to see why one of these follows from the other : I not 
only see no reason, but I perceive that I see none, though 
I can no more help the expectation than I can stop the 
circulation of my blood. There is a premiss and there is 
a conclusion, but there is a total want of connexion between 
the two. The inference, then, from the one of these to the 
other rests upon no ground of the understanding ; by no 
search or analysis, however subtle or minute, can we 
extract from any corner of the human mind and intelli- 
gence, however remote, the very faintest reason for it. 

Such was the conclusion of a great philosopher of the 
last century, after an examination of the foundation upon 
which the belief in the order of nature rested. "When it 
is asked," says Hume, " what is the foundation of all our 
reasonings and conclusions concerning the relation of 
cause and effect, it may be replied in one word — Experience. 
But if we ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions 
from experience ? this implies a new question, which may 
be of more difficult solution. . . . Experience can be 
allowed to give direct and certain information of those pre- 



32 Order of Nature [Lect. 

cise objects only, and that precise period of time which fell 
under its cognizance ; but why should this experience be 
extended to future times and to other objects ? It must 
be acknowledged that there is here a consequence drawn 
by the mind, that there is a certain step taken, a process 
of thought and an inference which wants to be explained. 
These two propositions are far from the same. I have 
found that such and such an object has always been 
attended with such an effect, and I foresee that other 
objects which are in appearance similar will be attended 
with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the 
one proposition may justly be inferred from the other ; I 
know in fact that it always is inferred : but if you insist 
that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire 
you to produce that reasoning. The connexion between 
these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a 
medium which may enable the mind to draw such an in- 
ference, if, indeed, it can be drawn by reasoning and argu- 
ment. What that medium is I must confess passes my 
comprehension. I cannot find, I cannot imagine any such 
reasoning. You say that the one proposition is an infer- 
ence from the other ; but you must confess that the infer- 
ence is not intuitive, neither is it demonstrative. Of what 
nature is it then ? To say it is experimental is begging 
the question. For all inferences from experience suppose 
as their foundation that the future will resemble the past : 
it is impossible therefore that any arguments from experi- 
ence can prove this resemblance. Let the course of things 
be allowed hitherto ever so regular, that alone, without 
some new argument or inference, proves not that for the 
future it will continue so. As an agent I am quite satis- 
fied on the point, but as a philosopher I want to learn the 
foundation of this inference. No reading nor inquiry has 
yet been able to remove my difficulty. Can I do more 
than propose it to the public, even though perhaps I have 



II] Order of Nature 33 

small hopes of obtaining a solution ? We shall at all 
events by this means be sensible of our ignorance, if we do 
not augment our knowledge." 1 

Such is the nature of this remarkable and momentous 
inference and belief — necessary, all important for the 
purposes of life, but solely practical and possessing no 
intellectual character. Will it be said that this unintel- 
lectual and unreasoning character belongs to it in common 
with all the original perceptions of our nature, which 
cannot, as being original, rest upon any argumentative 
foundation ? This would not be a true or correct account 
of the character of this particular inference, and the absence 
of the rational quality in it. For there is this important 
difference between the rational or intellectual perceptions 
which cannot be traced further back than themselves, and 
this inference we are speaking of, viz. that those perceptions 
cannot be contradicted without an absolute ' absurdity, 
whereas an event in contradiction to this inference is no 
absurdity at all. The truth of a mathematical axiom can- 
not be traced further back than itself; but then an axiom 
is self-evidently true, and a contradiction to it is as self- 
evidently false. And, to go out of the sphere of strict 
demonstration, the inference from the coincidence of one 
part with another in organized matter, to design or law as 
distinguished from chance, is an inference which cannot be 
traced further back than itself; but then this inference 
cannot be contradicted without a shock to reason. The 
supposition that this whole world came together by chance 
is an absurdity. But the inference from the past to the 
future wants this intrinsic note and test of an inference of 
reason, that the contradictory to it is in no collision with 
reason. There is no violence to reason in the supposition 
that the world will come to an end, and the sun will one 
day not rise, notwithstanding the increasing presumption 

1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. iv. 
C 



Order of Nature [Lect. 



from repetition up to that very day that it will rise. Indeed, 
it is not wholly unmeaning to observe that the great meta- 
physician himself, who analyzed the argument from experi- 
ence, has unconsciously tested that argument by this very 
case. Two famous atheistical philosophers have predicted 
the end of the world and the dissolution of all things. The 
grand and striking prophecy of Lucretius is given with an 
almost oracular solemnity ; but the vaticination of our own 
philosopher, based upon hints and analogies in nature, is 
also delivered with a grave and serious voice, which arrests 
attention. " Suppose," says Hume, " all authors in all 
languages agree that from the 1st of January, 1600, there 
was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days : 
suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still 
strong and lively among the people: that all travellers who 
return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same 
tr'aditio.n, -without the least variation or contradiction: it is 
evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting 
the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search 
for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, 
corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered 
probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon which 
seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe comes 
within the reach of human testimony." 1 The end of the 
world, then, so far from being impossible, is here contem- 
plated as likely ; and yet up to the very moment of the end 
— for if it comes at all, it may come in a moment — the 
argument from experience that it will continue will be in 
full force, — nay, in the very greatest force that it has ever 
been in since the beginning of things. The argument from 
mere experience, then, intrinsically differs in the quality of 
reasoning, not only from mathematical reasoning, but even, 
as has been noticed, from the other great department of 
iwobable reasoning. 

1 Essay on Miracles. 



II] Order of Nature 35 

Indeed, that this belief in the uniformity of nature is not 
a part of reason is shewn by the circumstance that even the 
brute animals are possessed with it, apparently quite as 
much as man is. This is indeed the very first and most 
obvious trait of their instinct ; for it must strike the most 
ordinary observers that all animals show by their actions that 
from the past they infer the future, and that they calculate, 
just in the same way in which we do, upon the constancy 
of that part of the course of nature with which they are 
concerned. Nor can we by the very minutest analysis 
discover the slightest difference in the nature of this par- 
ticular instinct in the two cases, however different may be the 
range and rank of the facts to which it is applied. How- 
ever limited the experience of animals as compared with 
man's, the inference from experience is the same in them 
as in man. " We admire," says Hume, " the instincts of 
animals as something very extraordinary and inexplicable 
by all the disquisitions of the human understanding. But 
our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we con- 
sider that experimental reasoning itself, which we possess 
in common with beasts, is nothing but a species of instinct 
or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves." 1 
I would add to this statement one remark. Some faint 
elements of reason being discernible in the brute, it is not 
enough to prove that a process is not a process of reason, 
that something approaching to it is seen in the brute. But 
allowing this, still a mental act which an animal performs 
in a mode which we cannot see to differ from the human 
mode of it, however valuable an act, is not what we 
popularly call and mean by an act of reason. 

Under what head, then, shall we bring this mysterious 
and incomprehensible inference from the known to the 
unknown, from the objects and time of which we have had 
experience to other objects and other times of which we 

1 Enquiry, &c, sect. ix. 



36 Order of Nature [Lect. 

have none: — that which we call belief in the order of 
nature ? To what general principle shall we refer this 
common primordial property of rational and irrational 
natures which lies at the basement of the whole pyramid 
of life ? It is not of importance to bring it under any 
regular head, so long as we understand its general character. 
We may observe that our nature, though endowed with 
reason, contains constitutionally large irrational depart- 
ments, and includes within it, as a true and genuine part 
of itself, nay, and a most valuable part, many processes 
which are entirely spontaneous, irresistible, and, so to call 
it, of the automaton kind. Such, e.g. is the impression 
which time makes upon us, by which it relieves our sorrows 
and moderates our joys. The loss of a relative or friend is 
in point of reason the same loss years hence that it is now, 
but we can no more prevent the effect of time upon our 
mind, than we can the spontaneous action of an internal 
bodily organ. So, again, the force of association is an 
irresistible principle. The ties of place and of country are 
in one respect irresistible ; men may act against them, but 
can never cancel or annihilate them in their own minds. 
And — to take a signal instance — custom or habit is an 
irresistible principle. No reason can be given why acts 
should become easier by repetition, i.e. for the force of 
habit. The acts, however, being done, the formation of a 
habit is as spontaneous and irresistible a process as the 
growth of a vegetable. Under which head the belief now 
spoken of would appear to come. " Whenever," says the 
philosopher I have quoted, "the repetition of any particular 
act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same 
act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning 
or process of the understanding, we always say that this 
propensity is the effect of custom. By employing that 
word we do not pretend to have given the ultimate reason 
of such a propensity. We only point out a principle which 



II] Order of Nature 3 7 

is universally acknowledged, and which is well known "by 
its effects. Perhaps we can push our inquiries no further 
or pretend to give the cause of this cause ; but must rest 
contented with it as the ultimate principle which we can 
assign to all our conclusions from experience. This 
hypothesis seems even the only one which explains the 
difficulty why we draw from a thousand instances an 
inference which we are not able to draw from one 
instance." 1 

1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sect. v. It will be 
observed that this argument from experience of which we are speaking, is 
different from, and must not be confounded with, what we call the argu- 
ment of analogy. The term analogy itself may indeed be applied to any 
case of likeness : on which account the inference from like past to like 
future, or the argument of experience, may be and is sometimes called an 
argument of analogy. But it must be seen that it makes all the difference 
in the nature of the argument whether it is applied to like physical facts or 
like acts of a moral being. What we call by distinction the argument of 
analogy is concerned with the latter : it is an argument from an act of the 
Divine Being in one case to the probability of a like act in another 
•vhich appears to us a similar case. The validity of this argument, then, 
depends entirely upon the similarity of these two cases ; the resemblance in 
the two sets of circumstances and nature of the two objects to which the 
two acts belong — the two acts from the one of which we argue to the other. 
Nothing could be more absurd than to argue from one act to another like 
it, if there were no resemblance in the cases in and objects for which the 
two acts were performed. And the same with respect to the negative side 
of analogy. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that, to prove 
the tenableness of one course of action, attributed to the Deity, in one case, 
it was enough to point to even the most admitted similar course of Divine 
action in a totally different case. The whole validity, then, of the argument 
of analogy depends upon the establishment of a parallel case, i.e. though not 
absolutely identical, substantially similar : and for the correctness of this 
resemblance in the two cases we make ourselves responsible when we use 
the argument. But the selection of a real parallel or like case, such as 
this argument stands in need of, is an act of reason and judgment, requiring 
thought and comparison ; it is indeed an act which exercises the utmost 
discrimination ; and is therefore an act of another kind wholly to the 
mechanical expectation of like events or recurrences in nature. Whence it 
appears that the argument of analogy, as it is called, is a fundamentally 
different argument from the argument of experience. 



38 Order of Nature [Lect. 

And now, the belief in the order of nature being thus, 
however powerful and useful, an unintelligent impulse of 
which we can give no rational account, in what way does 
this discovery affect the question of miracles ? In this 
way: that this belief not having itself its foundation in 
reason, the ground is gone upon which it could be main- 
tained that miracles as opposed to the order of nature were 
opposed to reason. There being no producible reason why 
a new event should be like the hitherto course of nature, 
no decision of reason is contradicted by its unlikeness. A 
miracle in being opposed to our experience is not only not 
opposed to necessary reasoning, but to any reasoning. Do 
I see by a certain perception the connexion between these 
two — It has happened so : it will happen so ; then may I 
reject a new reported fact which has not happened so, as an 
impossibility. But if I do not see the connexion between 
these two by a certain perception, or by any perception, I 
cannot. For a miracle to be rejected as such there must at 
any rate be some proposition in the mind of man which is 
opposed to it : and that proposition can only spring from 
the quarter to which we have been referring, viz. that of 
elementary experimental reasoning. But if this experi- 
mental reasoning is of that nature which philosophy 
describes it as being of, i.e. if it is not itself a process of 
reason, how can there from an irrational process of the 
mind arise a proposition at all, — to make which is the 
function of the rational faculty alone ? There cannot ; 
and it is evident that the miraculous does not stand in any 
opposition whatever to reason. 

I have spoken throughout this argument of the belief in 
the order of nature as the expectation of continuance, of a 
like ficture ; but it makes no difference whether the unlike 
event is a future or a reported past one : in either case it 
comes into collision with the expectation of likeness, 
which takes within its scope alike the future and the past. 



II] Order of Nature 39 

The report of a past unlike event encounters the same 
resistance in the mind as the idea of a future one. 

Thus step by step has philosophy loosened the connexion 
of the order of nature with the ground of reason, befriend- 
ing, in exact proportion as it has done this, the principle of 
miracles. In the argument against miracles the first 
objection is that they are against law ; and this is answered 
by saying that we know nothing in nature of law in the 
sense in which it prevents miracles. Law can only pre- 
vent miracles by compelling and making necessary the 
succession of nature, i.e. in the sense of causation; but 
science has itself proclaimed the truth that we see no causes 
in nature; 1 that the whole chain of physical succession is 
to the eye of reason a rope of sand, consisting of ante- 
cedents and consequents, but without a rational link or 
trace of necessary connexion between them. We only 
know of law in nature in the sense of recurrences in nature, 
classes of facts, like facts in nature — a chain of which, the 
junction not being reducible to reason, the interruption is 
not against reason. The claim of law settled, the next ob- 
jection in the argument against miracles is that they are 
against experience ; because we expect facts like to those of 
our experience, and miracles are unlike ones. The weight, 
then, of the objection of unlikeness to experience depends 
on the reason which can be produced for the expectation of 
likeness : and to this call philosophy has replied by the 
summary confession that we have no reason. Philosophy, 
then, could not have overthrown more thoroughly than it 
has done the order of nature as a necessary course of things, 
or cleared the ground more effectually for the principle of 
miracles. 

1 Taking " cause" not in an absolute sense as necessarily containiDg its 
effect, but in the popular sense of secondary cause, which may be suspended 
by a higher cause, the idea of real causation in nature is not opposed to the 
miraculous ; and general belief has united the two. 



40 Order of Nature [Lect. 

Hitherto, however, we have been dealing with the infer- 
ence from the known to the unknown, or the belief in the 
uniformity of nature, in connexion only with the facts of 
vulgar sensible experience. Let us now regard the same 
inference and principle in connexion with science ; in 
which connexion it receives a more imposing name, and is 
called the inductive principle. The inductive inference or 
principle is that act of the mind by which, when the 
philosopher has ascertained by discovery a particular fact 
in nature, and its recurrence in the same connexion within 
his own observation, he forthwith infers that this fact will 
universally take place, or converts it into a law. Does this 
inference from past experience, then, in connexion with 
science pass into a new phase and become luminous and 
intellectual, or does it remain the same blind and un- 
reasoning instinct as before ? 

When we examine, then, what it is which composes 
that process which is called inductive reasoning, we find 
that it consists of two parts, and that the first of these two 
parts is the simple discovery of a fact. There is wanted 
the physical cause of some known fact, and this cause is 
another fact not known as yet in this relation, for which 
accordingly the philosopher institutes a search. It must 
be a fact which fulfils certain conditions, must always pre- 
cede the known fact when the latter takes place, and 
always omit this precedence when it does not take place. 
The test of invariable antecedence puts aside as causes on 
the one hand all the facts which the event takes place with- 
out, and on the other hand all which the event does not 
take place with, till it gets at the residuum which is the 
physical cause. The sagacity of the man of science, then, 
is shewn in hitting upon and singling out the fact which 
fulfils these conditions from the midst of the whole pro- 
miscuous crowd of facts which surround the phenomenon 
before him — a process which severely tries his powers of 



II] Order of Nature 41 

observation, force and steadiness of attention, quickness of 
apprehension, watchfulness, accuracy ; his powers of com- 
parison, of seeing things in relation, and detecting hidden 
relationships and connexions in things. He has to extract 
the real key to the enigma out of a quantity of deceptive 
and misleading promises of solution, which take him in dif- 
ferent directions only to retrace his steps ; he has to repeat 
again and again the selection of facts which he brings to 
the test, to see if they answer to it ; he has to carry in his 
mind a large body of old observations, in order to provide 
connexion and productiveness to the new. 

This is the first part, then, of the inductive process ; but 
as yet we have only ascertained a fact — a fact indeed 
which fulfils peculiar conditions, and therefore has not 
been observed by the ordinary use of the eyes, but by a 
process of selection ; but still no more than a fact, that is 
to say, a particular past occurrence which has been often 
repeated ; that the pursuit of it has been regular and 
systematic does not alter the particularity of the fact, or 
make it at all the more a universal or a law. ,To take the 
familiar instance of the discovery of vaccination. In this 
instance it was discovered that in all the observed cases 
of freedom from a particular complaint, a certain fact 
preceded that fact ; but that was only a particular observa- 
tion : how was it converted into a universal, or into the 
law that, where that fact or something equivalent to it pre- 
ceded, that freedom would always follow ? 

The inference, then, which converts scientific observation 
into law, which we call the inductive principle, and is the 
second part of the inductive process, is exactly the same 
instinct which converts ordinary and common experience 
into law ; viz., that habit by which we always extend any 
existing recurrent fact of nature into the future. The in- 
ductive principle is only this unreasoning impulse applied 
to a scien tifically ascertained fact, instead of to a vulgarly 



42 Order of Nature [Lect. 

ascertained fact. Science is only a method of ascertaining 
the fact, which when once ascertained is the same as any 
common fact, and dealt with by our nature in the same 
way. Science has led up to the fact, but there it stops, 
and for converting the fact into a law, a totally unscientific 
principle comes in, the same as that which generalizes the 
commonest observation in nature. The one is a selected 
fact indeed, the other an obvious palpable fact, but that 
which gives constancy and future recurrence to each — the 
prediction attaching to them, is a simple impression of 
which we can give no rational account, which likens the 
future to the past. The naturalist obtains his fact by his 
own sagacity, but the generalization of it is done for him, 
and this spontaneous addition is the same in the discovery 
of a philosopher and the observation of a savage. There is 
all the difference in the philosophical rank of the two ob- 
servations, their transition from fact into law is one common 
mechanical appendage. That which stereotypes them both 
is the same, and for his future or universal the scientific 
man falls back upon the same instinct as that which sup- 
plies the physical prospect of the peasant. (2.) 

And here it may be remarked by the way, that what is 
called inductive reasoning is not, strictly speaking, reason- 
ing. It is called so because an inference is made in it, a 
general conclusion is drawn from particulars. But the 
first part of the inductive process is not reasoning but ob- 
servation ; the second part is not reasoning but instinct : 
the scientific part is not inductive, the inductive part is 
not scientific. (3.) Hence we cannot attribute to scientific 
men, by however penetrating and lofty faculties they may 
have discovered facts, any peculiar perception of recurrence 
or law. Language has been used as if science generated a 
perception of mathematical or necessary sequence in the 
order of nature. (4.) But science has herself proclaimed 
the truth that there is no necessary connexion in nature ; 



II] Order of Nature 43 

nor has science to do with generalization at all, but only 
with discovery. And I may add, that though science avails 
herself of the inductive principle and depends for all 
her utility upon it, still to ascertain the nature of this 
principle is not the province of physical but of mental 
science. 

It must be observed, again, that the inductive principle 
thus spoken of as unscientific, upon which the order of 
nature is founded, is totally different from the perception 
of harmony and relation in nature. We use the phrase 
' order of nature' in two senses ; that of arrangement, and 
that of recurrence. I see relation amongst different things, 
and I call that the order of nature ; and I see the repetition 
of the same thing, and I call that the order of nature too. 
I examine the component parts, and see their wonderful 
and subtle adjustment; and I take everything in a lump, 
and expect its uniform continuance ; and both of these I 
call the order of nature. But in one of these senses order 
is a scientific perception, in the other it is not : and though 
philosophers have a far deeper insight into the order of 
nature in the one sense than common people have, they 
have not in the other. Their knowledge of nature enables 
them to unravel the multiplicity of relations in her, and so 
to see a more wonderful and nicer agreement or system in 
her ; but gives them no greater light whereby to prophesy 
her continuance or repetition. While we also remark that 
it is not in the sense of harmony and system that the order 
of nature is opposed to the miraculous at all. The action 
of some intricate engine is interrupted designedly for some 
purpose ; is the admirable perfection of the machinery at 
all interfered with by that fact ? Do I see its order and 
arrangement the less ? Does even an injurious interrup- 
tion of the relations of the internal organs of the body, as 
disease is, make our bodily structure at all less wonderful 
a contrivance ? The order of nature, then, in the sense of 



44 Order of Nature [Lect. 

its harmony, is not disturbed by a miracle ; the interruption 
of a train of relations in one instance leaves them standing 
in every other, i.e. leaves the system as such untouched. 
Mature is the same surprising exhibition of mutual relation 
and adjustment, whether in one instance or so the action 
of the machine is or is not interrupted. What is disturbed 
by a miracle is the mechanical expectation of recurrence, 
from which, and not from the system and arrangement in 
nature, the notion of immutability proceeds. 

What is the conclusion, then, to be drawn from this 
statement of the process of induction ? It is this. The 
scientific part of induction being only the pursuit of a 
particular fact, miracles cannot in the nature of the case 
receive any blow from the scientific part of induction ; be- 
cause the existence of one fact does not interfere with the 
existence of another dissimilar fact. That which does resist 
the miraculous is the ^scientific part of induction, or the 
instinctive generalization upon this fact. The inductive 
principle being that which assimilates the unknown to the 
known, or establishes the order of nature, is opposed to any 
dissimilar fact or interruption of that order, whether we 
think of it as goincr to be, or whether we think of it as 
having by report taken place. A reported miracle is a re- 
ported case in which the order of nature did not for that 
instance continue, but was interrupted. The inductive 
principle therefore resists that miracle. But what is the 
inductive principle 1 What is its nature ? what is its 
force ? what is its weight upon such a question ? The in- 
ductive principle is simply the mechanical expectation of 
the likeness of the unknown to the known, not become any 
more luminous than it was before because its subject-mat- 
ter is higher; but being in the most vulgar and the most 
scientific material alike unreasoning, i.e. no part of the dis- 
tinctive reason of man. When, then, there is nothing on 
the side of reason opposed to it, as is the case commonly 



II] Order of Nature 45 

we follow it absolutely. But supposing there should arise 
a call of reason to us to believe what is opposite to it ; sup- 
posing there is the evidence of testimony, which is an ap- 
peal to our proper reason, that an event has taken place 
which is opposed to this impression — it is evident then 
that our reason must prevail in the encounter, i.e., that if 
there is on one side positive evidence, the antecedent 
counter-expectation of instinct must give way. And thus 
we come round to Butler's statement of the ground of ex- 
perience, that " there is a probability that all things w T ill 
continue as we experience they are, except in those re- 
spects in which we have some reason to think they will be 
altered." This definition of the force of experience is an 
appeal to our consciousness, and our consciousness responds 
to it, recognising no other belief in the order of nature but 
the one thus described. But as thus described this belief 
is self-limited, and intrinsically admits of events contrary 
to it ; within its very body and substance is contained the 
confession of its own possible error, the anticipation of rea- 
sonable contradiction to it. 

The proper function of the inductive principle, the argu- 
ment from experience, or the belief in the order of nature 
— by whatever phrase we designate the same instinct — is 
to operate as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the 
carrying on of human society. Without it it would be im- 
possible for the world to go on, because without it we 
should have no future before us to calculate upon; we 
should not feel any assurance of the continuance of the 
world itself from moment to moment. This principle it is, 
then, which makes human life practicable ; which utilizes 
all our knowledge ; which makes the past anything more 
than an irrelevant picture to us ; for of what use is the ex- 
perience of the past to us unless we believe the future will 
be like it ? But it is also evident what is not the proper 
function of this principle. It does not belong to this prin- 



46 Order of Nature [Lect. 

ciple to lay down speculative positions, and to say what 
can or cannot take place in the world. It does not "belong 
to it to control religions belief, or to determine that certain 
acts of God for the revelation of His will to man, reported 
to have taken place, have not taken place. Such decisions 
are totally out of its sphere ; it can assert the universal as 
a lav: ; but the universal as a law and the universal as a 
proposition are wholly distinct. The proposition is the 
universal as a fact, the law is the universal as a presump- 
tion ; the one is an absolute certainty, the other is a prac- 
tical certainty, when there is no reason to expect the con- 
trary. The one contains and includes the particular, the 
other does not : from the one we argue mathematically to 
the falsehood of any opposite particular ; from the other we 
do not. Yet there has existed virtually in the speculations 
of some philosophers an identification of a universal as a 
law, with a universal proposition ; by which summary ex- 
pedient they enclosed the world in iron, and bound the 
Deity in adamantine fetters; for such a law forestalls all 
exception to it. An apparently counter-process has indeed 
accompanied this elevation of induction to mathematics, 
viz., the lowering of mathematics to induction. But either 
form of identification has the same result, for if demon- 
strable and experimental reasoning stand on the same 
ground, an alchemical process is obtained for transmuting 
the blind inference from experience into demonstration, 
and thus endowing the order of nature which rests upon 
that experience with the character of immutable and neces- 
sary law. (5.) 

For example, one signal miracle, pre-eminent for its 
grandeur, crowned the evidence of the supernatural char- 
acter and office of our Lord — our Lord's ascension — His 
going up with His body of flesh and bones into the sky, in 
the presence of His disciples. " He lifted up His hands, 
and blessed them. And while He blessed them, He was 



II] Order of Nature 47 

parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they 
looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, and a 
cloud received Him out of their sight." l 

Here is an amazing scene, which strikes even the devout 
believer, coming across it in the sacred page suddenly or 
by chance, amid the routine of life, with a fresh surprise. 
Did, then, this event really take place ? Or is the evidence 
of it forestalled by the inductive principle compelling us to 
remove the scene as such out of the category of matters of 
fact ? The answer is, that the inductive principle is in its 
own nature only an expectation ; and that the expectation, 
that what is unlike our experience will not happen, is quite 
consistent with its occurrence in fact. This principle does 
not pretend to decide the question of fact ; which is wholly 
out of its province and beyond its function. It can only 
decide the fact by the medium of a universal ; the universal 
proposition that no man has ascended to heaven. But this 
is a statement which exceeds its power ; it is as radically 
incompetent to pronounce it as the taste or smell is to 
decide on matters of sight; its function is practical, not 
logical. ISTo antecedent statement, then, which touches my 
belief in this scene, is allowed by the laws of thought. 
Converted indeed into a universal proposition, the induc- 
tive principle is omnipotent, and totally annihilates every 
particular which does not come within its range. The uni- 
versal statement that no man has ascended into heaven, 
absolutely falsifies the fact that One Man has. But thus 
transmuted, the inductive principle issues out of this meta- 
morphose, a fiction not a truth ; a weapon of air, which 
even in the hand of a giant can inflict no blow because it 
is itself a shadow. The object of assault receives the un- 
substantial thrust without a shock, only exposing the want 
of solidity in the implement of war. The battle against 

1 Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acts i. 9, 10. 



48 Order of Nature 

the supernatural has been going on long, and strong men 
have conducted it and are conducting it — but what they 
want is a weapon. The logic of unbelief wants a universal. 
But no real universal is forthcoming, and it only wastes its 
strength in wielding a fictitious one. 



LECTURE III 

INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON BELIEF 

Psalm cxxxix. 14 

Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul Tcnoweth right well. 

IT is evident that the effect which the visible order of 
nature has upon some minds is, that as soon as they 
realize what a miracle is, they are stopped by what appears 
to them a simple sense of its impossibility. So long as 
they only believe by habit and education, they accept a 
miracle without difficulty, because they do not realize it as 
an event which actually took place in the world ; the alter- 
ation of the face of the world, and the whole growth of in- 
tervening history, throw the miracles of the Gospel into a 
remote perspective in which they are rather seen as a pic- 
ture than as real occurrences. But as soon as they see 
that, if these miracles are true, they once really happened, 
what they feel then is the apparent sense of their impossi- 
bility. It is not a question of evidence with them : when 
they realize, e.g., that our Lord's resurrection, if true, was a 
visible fact or occurrence, they have the seeming certain 
perception that it is an impossible occurrence. " I cannot," 
a person says to himself in effect, " tear myself from the 
type of experience, and join myself to another. I cannot 
quit order and law for what is eccentric. There is a repul- 
sion between such facts and my belief as strong as that 
between physical substances. In the mere effort to con- 

D 



50 Influence of the [Lect. 

ceive these amazing scenes as real ones, I fall back upon 
myself and upon that type of reality which the order of 
nature has impressed upon me." 

Now when such a person proceeds to probe the ground 
of his deep objection to a miracle, the first thing, I think, 
that cannot but strike him is how very poor any reason he 
can allege and specify is, compared with the amount of his 
own inward feeling of certainty. If he is a reflecting per- 
son, he cannot but be struck of his own accord with this 
singular disproportion between the two — on the one hand an 
overpowering prepossession, on the other hardly anything to 
sustain it. The form in which he will first put his reason 
to himself will perhaps be that miracles are inconceivable 
to him. But what is meant by this assertion ? That the 
causes are inconceivable ? But the causes of the commonest 
physical facts are the same. That the facts are inconceiv- 
able ? But the facts are not inconceivable, but conceiv- 
able. I can conceive the change of water into wine just 
as easily as I can conceive any chemical conversion ; i.e. I 
can first conceive water, and then I can conceive wine in 
the place of water ; and that is all I can do in the case 
of any change of one substance into another in chemistry. 
The absence of the medium of an artificial process only 
makes the cause inconceivable, not the fact. So I can form 
the idea of a dead man alive again, just as easily as I can 
of the process of decay ; one fact is as conceivable as 
another, while the causes are alike inconceivable of both. 

We cannot rest, then, at the reason of inconceivableness, 
but must go on to some further one. Is it that miracles 
are physical results produced without means, without a 
physical medium intervening between the Divine will and 
the result ? But we cannot pronounce upon the fact of the 
total absence of means, but only on their invisibility, which 
belongs to many steps and media in nature. Nor can we 
pronounce upon the necessity of physical means ; for even 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 51 

in the natural action of will or spirit upon matter, there 
must be a point at which the one acts on the other without 
a medium, however inconceivable that may be ; otherwise 
if the media never end, the one never gets at the other 
at all. 

The reason then against miracles that we come to at last, 
and in which all these vaguer reasons end, is simply their 
unlikeness to the order of nature. A suspension of the order 
of nature is the ordinary phrase in which we express this 
unlikeness to the order of nature (1) ; but whether or not 
we call unlikeness by this term, the fact itself is the ulti- 
mate objection to a miracle. It was shewn, however, in 
my last lecture, what the expectation of likeness was, and 
that no reason against an unlike event as such was pro- 
ducible or even imaginable. 

The rejecter of miracles has indeed, in the overpowering 
force of an impression upon his mind, something to which 
argument is hardly adapted. Every time he recalls a 
miracle to his imagination, he recalls a felt something at 
the bottom which in his own idea closes the door against 
it ; something at the root of the matter which is untouched, 
a true cause of conviction which is unanswered ; he cannot 
conceive that so strong a rejecting influence as he feels can 
be without rational necessity ; that the force of the resis- 
tance in his mind is not its own vindication. 

And yet the question of the possibility of anything — 
possibility — i.e. as far as we know — is a judicial question 
which must be decided in the same way as a question of 
fact. There is a court which decides this question — the 
inner court of our own mind, in which witnesses are cited 
and evidence is heard. The witnesses cited into this court 
are all the faculties and perceptions of our minds ; and 
when they have answered to the summons, one question is 
put to them, — Does any reason exist why a miracle is im- 
possible ? If they know of none, the case is over. The 



5 2 Inflitence of the [Lect. 

court of possibility decides in the same way in which a 
court of fact does. It is an open court into which all mankind 
are admitted, for indeed the witness in that court is the 
collective reason of mankind, which appears there to give an 
account of itself, to declare to its own known contents, and 
whether amongst them all there is found a reason for the im- 
possibility of a miracle. Science has its summary evidence 
of fact by which it challenges foregone conclusions; and 
reason has the same. 

What has been, then, in the present instance the cause at 
work — that which has made a reason, when there was none, 
against the miraculous as such ? I cannot but think that 
under an intellectual disguise it is the imagination. The 
design, as I have stated, of the inductive principle or belief 
in the order of nature is a practical one — to enable provision 
to be made for human life and welfare ; which could not be 
done unless we could reckon upon the likeness of the past 
to the future. For without this expectation, what would 
be our prospect ? Every moment of nature might be its 
last, and we should live upon the constant brink of utter 
change and dissolution, which would paralyze all action in 
us. But the impression as it exists in us by nature being 
entirely a practical one, and this being its legitimate and 
constitutional scope, imagination seizes hold of it and 
diverts it from its scope ; by brooding upon it exaggerates 
it ; converts a practical expectation into a scientific truth, 
and extracts from an unreasoning instinct what it cannot 
by its very nature contain — a universal intellectual proposi- 
tion, that the order of nature is immutable. 

We apply the term imagination to denote that faculty 
by which the mind adds anything out of itself to a fact or 
truth, whether that fact or truth be a visible object, or an 
idea or motive within us. Being such, however, the ima- 
gination has a very different moral aspect according as it 
acts in one or other of two ways ; that is to say, actively, 






Ill] Imagination on Belief 53 

by energy and self-exertion from within, or passively, by 
yielding to an impulse or impression from without. In 
either case it adds to a fact something which that fact does 
not supply of itself ; for to yield too much to an impression 
is to exaggerate it : but the two cases of addition widely 
differ. When the imagination acts by energy from within, 
when it enables us to see the force and extent of some 
truth, to grasp a condition of things external to ourselves, 
to understand the feelings and the wants of others, to ad- 
mire nature, to sympathize with man ; or when it aids in 
the work of combination, construction, invention ; in thus 
actively imparting meaning and life to facts, imagination is 
a noble and effective instrument, if indeed we may not call 
it a part, of reason. But when the imagination exaggerates 
an impression by passively submitting and surrendering 
itself to it, when it gives way to the mere force of attrac- 
tion, and instead of grasping something else, is itself grasped 
and mastered by some dominant idea — it is then not a 
power, but a failing and a weakness of nature. We may 
call these respectively active and passive imagination. 
When imagination is spoken of in books of morals as a 
common source of delusion and unhappiness in men, who 
are carried away by their joys and griefs, their hopes and 
fears, and allow impressions to fasten upon them till they 
cannot shake them off, it is not the active imagination 
which is meant, but the passive. 

The passive imagination, then, in the present case exag- 
gerates a practical expectation of the uniformity of nature, 
implanted in us for practical ends, into a scientific or uni- 
versal proposition ; and it does this by surrendering itself 
to the impression produced by the constant spectacle of the 
regularity of visible nature. By such a course a person 
allows the weight and pressure of this idea to grow upon 
him till it reaches the point of actually restricting his 
sense of possibility to the mould of physical order. It is a 



54 Influence of the [Lect. 

common remark that repetition as such tends to make itself 
believed ; and that if an assertion is simply reiterated often 
enough it makes its way to acceptance ; which is to say 
that the force of impression produces belief independent!)" 
of reason. The order of nature thus stamps upon some 
minds the idea of its immutability simply by its repetition. 
The imagination we usually indeed associate with the ac- 
ceptance of the supernatural rather than with the denial of 
it ; but the passive imagination is in truth neutral ; it only 
increases the force and tightens the hold of any impression 
upon us, to whatever class the impression may belong; 
and surrenders itself to a superstitious or a physical idea, 
as it may be. Materialism itself is the result of imagina- 
tion, which is so impressed by matter that it cannot realize 
the existence of spirit. 

The passive imagination thus accounts for the rise of the 
apparent perception of the impossibility of a miracle. For 
what is this perception in those who have it, and what is 
the actual form which it takes ? The form which it takes 
is this, that, upon the image of a miracle occurring to the 
mind, there is at once an entire starting back and repulsion 
from it, as from something radically antagonistic to the very 
type of reality and matter of fact. Now, that a contradiction 
to the order of nature should excite a provisionary resis- 
tance in our minds is inevitable ; because we possess the 
instinctive expectation of uniformity, unlikeness disagrees 
with that expectation, this disagreement creates surprise, 
and surprise is provisionary resistance. But what is it that 
makes this provisionary resistance final ? Is it reason ? 
No. Eeason imposes no veto upon unlikeness. Then it is 
the imagination. Eeason may reject that unlike event for 
want of evidence, imagination alone can reject it as such. 

Is it not true, indeed, that the intellect, like the feelings 
and affections, is capable of contracting bad habits, which 
need not at all interfere with the soundness and acuteness of 






Ill] Imagination on Belief 55 

it in general, but may only corrupt and disable the judg- 
ment upon particular subjects ? If then, when there is no 
producible reason why a miracle should be impossible, a 
person appears to himself to perceive that it is ; if the in- 
tellect is so bound to the order of nature that it rejects by 
an instantaneous impulse a fact of a contrary type as 
such, it can only be because the intellect has contracted an 
unsound habit upon that subject-matter. 

It will be replied, however, " We do not reject strange 
and anomalous facts as such, we receive many such ; and 
therefore our disbelief in miracles is not the effect of ima- 
gination starting back from an eccentric type." But I 
answer, that the acceptance of eccentric facts solely upon 
the hypothesis that they are ultimately reducible to the 
order of nature, is not an acceptance of really eccentric 
facts. They are admitted and receive assent only upon the 
idea that their eccentricity is a temporary mask, underneath 
which really lie facts which come under the head of existing 
classes and known laws. They are accepted as hypothetically 
like facts to known ones, not as unlike ones. Notwithstand- 
ing all the admission which is extended to such pheno- 
mena, facts ultimately eccentric excite as such a final 
resistance in the minds to which we are alluding, although 
no reason for their impossibility is forthcoming. 

And yet we may see how the imagination is compelled 
to confront and consent to the most inconceivable things, 
because it is dragged by the reason to do it. Two great 
counteracting influences appeal to it to preserve its balance 
against the impression from the uniformity of nature, and to 
rouse it from its lethargic submission to custom and recur- 
rence. One is the wonders of the visible world, the other 
is — for in this discussion I assume the doctrines of natural 
religion — the wonders of the invisible world. 

First the wonders of nature appeal to the imagination, 
in counteraction to the yoke of physical law. If we 



56 Influence of the [Lect. 

examine into the nature of the sense of wonder, we see 
that it implies a kind of resistance in the mind, — often, 
indeed more generally, a pleased resistance, — hut still a 
resistance to the facts which excite it. There is an ele- 
ment of doubt in wonder, a hesitation, a difficulty in 
taking in the new material and incorporating it in the 
existing body of belief. There is a sense of strangeness in 
wonder, of something to overcome in the character of the 
fact presented to it. All wonder therefore, where the facts 
are, as they are in the case of natural marvels, admitted, is 
a precedent for facts resisted and yet believed, resisted on 
one side of our nature, believed on another; all wonder 
therefore tends to dispose us to the supernatural. We see 
that in nature God acts in modes which astonish us, which 
startle us. On every side are seeming incredibilities. Why 
should this be so ? Why is nature such a dispensation of 
surprises ? Why is it that no processes, no methods, no 
means to ends go on in her which do not contain this 
element ? Is it the unavoidable condition of existence at 
all that it should be wonderful, and that all its mechanism 
should be wonderful ? Whether it is or no, the wonders of 
nature are precedents of the kind which I mention. 

But we have no sooner said thus much than we are im- 
mediately met by the fact that many men who have had 
the deepest sense of the wonderful in nature have been 
disbelievers in the supernatural : and the names of some 
great poets, and men of powerful imagination in the realm 
of science, will occur as familiar instances of this. What, 
then, is the difference in the sense of wonder in these two 
spheres such as would account for this fact ; and what is 
the relation in which the wonderful in nature stands to the 
supernatural ? 

The old saying then, that nature is as wonderful really 
as any miracle, were we not so accustomed to her, omits 
the task of comparison, and does not bring out an im- 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 57 

portant distinction which exists between these two kinds 
of the wonderful. A wonder of natural science is wonder- 
ful on its own account, and by reason of what is actually 
seen in it. In some vast disposition of nature for supply- 
ing the eye with light, or the vegetable with proper nutri- 
ment, or the limbs with active power, or for providing the 
breath of life itself, or for communicating heat, or distribut- 
ing colour, or for sustaining the motions of the heavens, 
or for any of those innumerable purposes for which the 
physical universe is adapted and contrived — it is the 
incredible power which comes out and exhibits and ex- 
presses itself in the arrangement which constitutes the 
subject of wonder. The effect is like that of looking on 
some gigantic machine in motion : it is the regulated force 
in action before our eyes that arrests us, which we admire 
for its own sake. The greatness lies in what is present 
and addresses itself to our perceptions, as power in execu- 
tion. This is the case especially in the impression made 
upon us by those extraordinary revelations of science 
which divulge as it were the miracles of nature, — the dis- 
closures, e.g. of the velocity of some of the motions of 
nature, or the magic of her metamorphoses and conver- 
sions. Even in the region of rude nature the source of 
wonder is in this respect the same, that that emotion 
arises in consequence of some signal force of nature which 
comes out and is manifested and expressed; which thus 
strikes us with astonishment on its own account. Such is 
the impression produced by the speed of lightning, the 
rage of winds, the weight of waters, even the great sounds 
of nature. And the same remark applies to the perception 
of the obvious and palpable features of order, beauty, and 
grandeur in nature ; viz. that the effect which they pro- 
duce upon our minds is an effect arising from something 
which is expressed and which comes out before our eyes. 
But while the marvel of nature surprises on account of 



58 Influence of the [Lect. 

what is visible and expressed in it, a miracle, on the other 
hand, excites our wonder less as a visible fact than as the 
sign of an invisible one : the wonderful really lies behind 
it ; for that which lies behind a miracle, the true reality of 
which the eccentric sign is but the veil and front, is the 
world supernatural. A miracle shows design and inten- 
tion, i.e. is the act of a Personal Being. Some one, there- 
fore, there is who is moving behind it, with whom it 
brings us in relation, a spiritual agent of whose presence it 
speaks. A miracle is thus, if true, an indication of another 
world, and an unseen state of being, containing personality 
and will; of another world of moral being besides this 
visible one ; and this is the overawing and impressing con- 
sideration in it; in the wonder excited by it, the mind 
rests only momentarily on the external fact, and passes on 
immediately to that mysterious personal power out of 
nature of which it is the token. 

Hence we obtain the true scope and character of that 
affection or propensity of the human mind which we call 
the love of the supernatural. It is impossible to question 
the existence and universality of this affection, and that it 
is an affection which is productive of a characteristic sensa- 
tion of pleasure. And when we examine and analyze this 
sensation, and investigate the source of this gratification — 
one instance of which indeed we may say we have even in 
the interest which attaches to those reported cases of 
supernatural communications and visits from the unseen 
world, upon whatever evidence resting, which we have all 
heard in conversation — when we trace, I say, this emotion 
to its source, we find it deeply and intimately connected 
with the sense of eternity in our minds, the desire for our 
own future existence. Any communication from the un- 
seen world — supposing it for an instant to be true — is a 
token of personal existence going on in that world, and so 
a pledge, as it were, of the continuation of our own per- 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 59 

sonal life when we depart hence. We are interested 
parties therefore. How indeed do we see people super- 
stitiously, fancifully, and therefore wrongly, catching at 
such signs of another world as if for safety ; at anything 
which promises a rescue from the absorption of the grave. 
But the very morbid excess of such longings shows that 
the love of the supernatural is no fictitious feeling. A 
miracle then, besides all the other purposes which it 
serves, is an answer to this affection ; it speaks to us of a 
power out of this order of things, of will, of Moral Being, 
of Personal Being in another world — of His existence, whose 
existence, according to our Lord's argument, is a security for 
the continuance of our own. Thus a miracle has an awe and 
a wonder attaching to it which is peculiarly its own, and 
is in marked contrast with physical wonder ; because it is 
a sign of an invisible world. It speaks to us in a manner 
and to a purpose, which all the astonishing forces of 
nature collected together cannot reach to: because it is 
addressed immediately to the soul, to the sense of immor- 
tality. The marvels of nature do not address themselves 
immediately to this part of us. Physical wonder is simply 
an entering into present reality, into what things are ; the 
sense is part of our very understanding ; for though great 
intellects have it most, a man must be without intellect at 
all who has no wonder. And therefore all the marvels and 
all the stupendous facts in nature do not speak to us in 
that way in which one miracle speaks to us ; because they 
do not speak to us directly of eternity ; they do not tell us 
that we are not like themselves — passing waves of the vast 
tide of physical life. 

And here I will just remark upon the perverse deter- 
mination of Spinoza to look at miracles in that aspect 
which does not belong to them, and not to look at them in 
that aspect which does. He compares miracles with 
nature, and then says how wise is the order of nature, how 



60 Influence of the [Lect. 

meaningless the violation of it; how expressive of the 
Almightv Mind the one, what a concealment of it the 
other ! But no one pretends to say that a miracle com- 
petes with nature, in physical purpose and effectiveness. 
That is not its object. But a miracle, though it does not 
profess to compete with nature upon its rival's own 
ground, has a ghostly force and import which nature has 
not. If real, it is a token, more pointed and direct than 
physical order can he, of another world, and of Moral 
Being and Will in that world. And I may add, that for 
this effect of a miracle the benevolent and philanthropical 
type is not necessary, however befitting such miracles as 
are intended to be emblems of Divine love : it is enough 
for this function of a miracle that power is shown : nor do 
we on that account bow down to the mere power in a 
miracle, but only to that power as the sign and evidence of 
a truth beyond it. 

Wonder in the natural world, then, differs from that 
wonder which has for its object the supernatural; and this 
accounts for the fact, referred to above, of some men of 
great genius not having been believers in the supernatural, 
though they had the deepest sense of the wonderful 

But, although the two wonders are not the same, it w 
not the less true that one of them points to the othei, 
that physical wonder is an introduction to the belief in 
the supernatural. It is an introduction to it in this way, 
that it tends to raise in the mind a larger idea of possi- 
bility — that idea which is expressed in the old quota- 
tion, that "there are more things in heaven and earth 
than are dreamed of in our philosophy;" the notion of 
the potential as distinguished from what is actual; the 
sense of the unknown. The same faculty of imagination 
which causes wonder also naturally produces this larger 
sense of possibility; for indeed this latter is a kind of 
negative imagination; which without framing positive 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 61 

images or figures of things, or putting contingencies into 
shape, distinctly contemplates the idea of what is out of 
sight, and raises up a vivid sense of the unknown region of 
what may be. This negative imagination is in the affairs 
of this world the groundwork of a worldly sagacity ; for 
those who are conscious of surrounding darkness, though 
they do not shape to themselves the contents of it, catch 
the more readily at such facts as emerge to light, and are 
more cautious under their concealment ; and in spiritual 
things partakes of the nature of faith ; for a sense of the 
possible unknown enters largely into our notion of faith. 

Nor is this connection of the sense of wonder with this 
eense of possibility shown by a common source only in the 
imagination; it is also proved by a common foe, which acts 
hs the stupifier and suppressor of them both — viz. custom. 
Custom proverbially diminishes wonder. It is commonly 
noticed as a deteriorating effect of custom, that it benumbs 
the faculty of admiration. The case has been often put, 
that could we imagine ourselves with our mature faculties 
seeing nature for the first time, the sight of her glory would 
act irresistibly upon us like a splendid vision, and raise the 
most powerful emotions ; but that we are accustomed to 
her and therefore our perception of her sublimity is dead- 
ened. 1 We would fain release ourselves from the thraldom 
of this stupor, unwind to its very last link the chain of 

1 " Nil adeo magnum nee tam mirabile quicquam 
Principio, quod non minuant mirarier omnes 
Paulatim ; ut coeli clarum purumque colorem 
Quemque in se cohibent palantia sidera passim 
Lunseque et solis prreclara luce nitorem : 
Omnia quae si nunc primum mortalibus adsint 
Ex improvise- ceu sint objecta repente ; 
Quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici, 
Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes ? 
Nil ut opinor, ita hsec species miranda fuisset ; 
Quom tibi jam nemo fessus satiate videndi 
Suspicerein coeli dignatur lucida templa." — Lucretius, ii. 1027. 



62 Influence of the [Lect. 

custom by which we are bound, and win back the original 
perception ; but we are held in the iron grasp of necessity. 
The effect of constant repetition is that the impression wears 
off, and our admiration becomes not so much admiring as the 
consciousness that we ought to admire. And yet if God, 
in planting us here, has set us down before a spectacle which 
is designed to elicit our admiration, it is plain that this de- 
fect of it is a confession that we are so far inadequate to the 
situation in which we are placed. I do not say that it may 
not be partially remedied by effort and culture. So the 
awe which moral and religious truths inspire wears off by 
repetition, till they become mere words ; unless a counter- 
acting force is found in our own minds. And thus the same 
person may exemplify the simultaneous growth of the 
strengthening and weakening effect of custom; deriving 
from this power an extraordinary facility and readiness in 
the use of particular faculties, while the same power has 
deadened in him the impression of every high truth. 

But if custom proverbially diminishes wonder, its effect 
in limiting the idea of possibility is equally proverbial : for 
it is the most familiar observation, that when we are accus- 
tomed to certain modes of doing things we get to think no 
other mode possible. No incongruity so glaring but that it 
is harmony itself to the eye of custom ; no combination so 
true but that it looks to it an impossibility : because the 
mind has surrendered itself captive to one form and mould, 
and cannot conceive anything different from what it is. 
And here I observe the questionable company in which the 
impression of immutability in the order of nature, i.e. of 
the possibility of nothing out of it, comes ; for the same 
principle that limits the sense of possibility also deadens 
the sense of wonder, and blunts the perception of beauty 
and truth. There is an evident analogy in these two effects 
of custom ; its effect upon sensibility, and its effect upon 
belie£ For I have shown that the immutability of the order 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 6 



j 



of nature is the decision of custom, only custom operating 
on the area of all nature instead of a small and local scale. 1 

A common source and a common foe then alike shew the 
connection of the sense of wonder with the lamer sense of 
possibility; while the connection of this latter with the 
belief in the supernatural is obvious. The sense of physical 
wonder therefore is through this medium intrinsically allied 
to and introductory to the belief in the supernatural. It is 
an attitude of mind which favours the latter belief. We 
may observe that some old religions, e.g. the Scandinavian, 
and the still earlier Aryan, seem to have been almost 
founded upon the sense of physical wonder. At the same 
time the sense of wonder in nature may stop at a first stage 
and not reach this further one which naturally succeeds to 
it. Having followed its object up to the gates of dark- 
ness, there the imagination of the poet rested ; and it was 
the more likely to do so if his mind was under the in- 
fluence of sensual passion or — what is a better though still 
a bad reason — a deep prejudice against the supernatural 
arising from passionate indignation at the abuses of religion, 
and hypocrisy in the profession of it. 

But the miraculous having a natural ally in the marvels 
of nature, has in the next place a still stronger support and 
a more direct parallel in the wonderful truths of the invisible 
world, which in this inquiry we assume. 

Upon this head, then, a ground has been recently taken 
which deserves notice. " We are ready," it has been said, 
" to admit the existence of an invisible world totally differ- 
ent from this visible one ; we do not object to anything 
inconceivable in that world ; to the most mysterious and 

1 " Quelle raison ont-ils de dire qu'on ne pent ressusciter? Quel est 
plus difficile de naitre ou de ressusciter, que ce qui n'a jamais ete soit, ou 
que ce qui a ete soit encore ? Est il plus difficile de venir en etre que d'y 
revenir ? La coutume nous rend l'un facile ; la manque de coutume rend 
l'autre impossible. Populaire facon de juger." — Pascal, cd. Faugcrc, vol. 
ii. p. 323- 



64 Influence of the [Lect. 

incomprehensible doctrines relating to it ; we leave un- 
touched the whole domain of the spiritual and invisible. 
But the existence of another world or order of things is 
another thing altogether from the interruption of this. 
What staggers our reason is not the invisible supernatural, 
but the violation of physical law." (2.) 

This position, then, breaks down with respect to the 
doctrines of revelation, for the simple reason that those 
doctrines require miracles for their proof, and therefore 
cannot consist with the rejection of the miraculous. But 
how does it stand as a simple comparison of the belief in 
the miraculous with the belief in an invisible world ? 

It is quite true, then, that if there is any intrinsic absur- 
dity in the interruption of order as such, the absurdity of 
the interruption of order in one world is not cancelled by 
the existence of another and a second world: and it is 
irrelevant to bring forward the latter fact as any extenua- 
tion of the former. But if the objection to the interruption 
of order is only a certain resistance of the mind, in that 
case, in admitting so astonishing a conception as the exis- 
tence of an invisible world, we have already got over the 
resistance of our minds in one most singular and remarkable 
instance ; which is a precedent for our getting over it in 
another instance. The natural effect of the mind taking 
in one strange and surprising truth, is that it entertains 
less opposition to another truth, on account of its being 
strange and surprising. The parallel holds in this impor- 
tant respect, even if the two instances are distinguished 
from each other in some points. 

For what image can be presented to the mind which 
more confounds the imagination than personal existence 
after the body's dissolution ? What can go more counter 
to the impress of experience ? What, if we did not believe 
it to be the most serious of all facts, would be a more wild 
and eccentric conception, more like a dream of imagination 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 65 

and a visionary creation of the poet, than the existence of 
another invisible world of created beings ? If a reflecting 
person is asked what it is absolutely easy to believe in, his 
answer is short, — Matter, and life connected with matter. 
If he is asked what it is not absolutely easy to believe in, 
his answer is equally short, — Everything else. The real 
belief in invisible things is, and is intended to be, and is 
represented in Scripture as being, not entirely easy, but 
requiring an effort and ascent of the mind. To a carnal 
imagination an invisible world is a contradiction in terms 
— another world besides the whole world. Nor is there 
much difference upon this head between the unseen world 
of natural religion and the unseen world of the Mcene 
Creed. The notion of a fixed and final state which absorbs 
all transitory life ; of an eternal world and consummation 
of all things which gathers into itself the whole spiritual 
population of the universe, and distributes into its infinite 
realms of endless life the countless millions of personal 
beings who pass into it out of this state of mortality — this 
or the Christian doctrine of another world is a far sublimer 
conception than any pagan one ; but another world at all 
is a marvellous, astonishing, and supernatural conception. 
And if we go into particulars, we know that there must be 
forms of life in that world, conditions of intelligence, sights 
and objects in it which follow inconceivable types. And 
we allow all this to be a reality, and innumerable hosts to 
be living now in that unseen sphere which is only divided 
from us by the veil of the flesh. Now a person may say 
that a marvellous condition of things in another world is 
not the same with the miraculous in this, but can he 
embrace the former conception as an actual truth, without 
a general effect on his standard of credibility ? Could he 
avoid, while this idea was vividly upon him, feeling less 
resistance in the mind to the miraculous ? Could a mir- 
acle look otherwise than less strange to him with the 

E 



66 Influence of the [Lect. 

strong impression of an existing different world at the 
moment upon his mind ? Has not the obstacle of unlike- 
ness to the known had to give way, and has there not been 
already introduced into his mind something wholly alien 
to the experimental contents of it ? That which is repul- 
sive in a miracle is the eccentricity of type in the fact ; 
this provokes the rejecting instinct, the antagonism of 
custom or experience; but in the admission of another 
world he has already passed through the shock of this col- 
lision. If an eternal invisible world indeed is admitted at 
all, it is so vast a conception, that this visible world floats 
like a mere fragment upon the unfathomable depths of that 
great mystery ; and its laws assume a subordinate rank. 

When, then, the distinction is drawn between the exist- 
ence of another world and the violation of order in this 
world; between the invisible and inconceivable, and the 
miraculous; it must be remembered that in both cases 
alike there is a difficulty of belief, arising from the common 
source of that mental habit which visible order engenders. 
If, then, I yield to this habit in the one instance, why may 
I not yield to it in the other, and an invisible world be- 
come an unreal conception to me ? An historical imagina- 
tion throws itself back into the Gospel era, pictures the 
people, the city, the passing day of the time and country ; 
then when it has made that time as real as possible, as 
truly present time once as to-day is now, the doubt arises 
— How can I believe that this stupendous miracle was a 
real occurrence ? But exactly the same ordeal will disturb 
the belief in the invisible world. Let a person try to think 
it real ; let him say to himself — ' Is the whole multitude 
that has passed away from this earthly scene since the race 
of man existed, in existence now, every one of them a 
living person in the realms of spirit ; is this person, is that 
person at this moment living, this great monarch, that 
sagacious statesmau, that sublime philosopher or poet, that 



HI] Imagination on Belief 67 

heroic soldier of antiquity ? Are the men of all ages, from 
the earliest pastoral tribe to the generation that has only 
just departed from us, enjoying a simultaneous existence in 
that world? Are such things conceivable?' As such 
thoughts crowd upon his mind will he not find it as diffi- 
cult to think all this a reality, as he does the miraculous to 
be such ? And yet if he does not think it a reality, what 
has he to look forward to himself when this passing scene 
is over ? This resistance, then, of the imagination to the 
miraculous is either no test of its truth, or a test which, 
endangers the existence of the invisible world as well. 

When we reduce the broad distinction drawn between 
the invisible world and the miraculous as objects of belief 
to its first principle, that principle would seem to be the 
principle of unity, or, if we may so express it, one world at 
a time — that the two worlds admitted to exist, must exist 
in absolute disconnexion. The objection felt against a 
miracle is that it offends against this principle, that it puts 
the two worlds into communication and junction with each 
other, whereas they are intrinsically separate ; that it is an 
interpolation from one order of things into another, an in- 
jection of the supernatural into the sphere of the natural, 
thus confounding two systems which are perfectly distinct. 
Can the Supreme Mind or Will in the invisible world 
declare itself by the insertion of an anomalous fact in 
nature ? It is boldly answered, No. 

With respect, then, to this objection to a miracle, that it 
is a transgression against the unity of nature, I observe 
that nature, so far from being constructed upon any prin- 
ciple of unity or simplicity in its contents, is itself the first 
great transgressor of that principle, being as mixed and 
heterogeneous a composition as can be imagined; and 
that therefore the introduction of a miracle into this scene 
is not a sudden incongruity, but that we are prepared for 
it by the miscellaneous and dissimilar physical and 



68 Influence of the [Lect. 

spiritual material of this world itself. It would indeed be 
a contradiction in terms to say that nature had anything 
in it supernatural; because the fact of the constant 
appearance of anything in nature makes it natural, and 
that only is supernatural which is out of the order of 
nature. 1 But though the contents of nature are all in 
common natural, as being its contents, they are of such 
totally different types, and some so much higher than 
others, that some as compared to and in relation to others 
are supernatural. A miracle is therefore no discordant 
isolation in a system of mere matter, but blends with and 
carries out the diversity of nature, which takes off the edge 
of the resistance to it. 

It would be cognate to this observation to notice that 
which has been so much dwelt upon by many, that 
nature borders everywhere upon the supernatural ; that the 
supernatural is not removed to an impassable distance 
from her, but stands at her very portals and touches her 
very outskirts. God is not in nature ; nevertheless the 
evidence of a God is. But what does evidence imply ? It 
implies a light breaking through nature, revealing that 
which is the subject of this light ; that nature is tracked 
to the edge of an incomprehensible truth. Wherever 
evidences of design, then, appear in the world, there nature 
borders upon mystery — the mystery of the Universal Mind 
and Will. And what, again, is the very infinity of the 
material world ? Do we not think of it as a kind of 
impossibility, so extravagant and eccentric a fact it is, and 
replete with extravagant results ? (3.) Space itself, divested 

1 "We mean by the supernatural that which is out of the order of nature. 
God, angels, departed spirits, heaven and hell, are out of the order of 
nature because they are not in nature at all ; a miracle is in nature in the 
sense of visibility, but is not in the order of nature ; the invisible world 
therefore, and miracles, are supernatural. But life, the human soul, 
conscience, reason, will, are natural, because they are in the order of nature 
or part of our constant experience. 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 69 

of the limit of sense, seems incredible. Yet this space is 
not a mere idea but a fact of this world; for not anywhere 
out of nature, but in whatever direction I point my 
finger, lies that enigma of infinite space which is as 
insoluble and mysterious as an apparition. But I revert 
to the topic of the mixed physical and spiritual contents 
of nature ; which comes to a head in the situation of man 
in nature. 

The record which this earth gives of itself shows that 
after a succession of stages and periods of vegetable and 
animal change, a new being made his appearance in nature. 
Those who profess to trace the bodily frame of man to a 
common animal source, still admit that the rational and 
moral being man is separated from all other animal natures 
by a chasm in the chain of causation which cannot be 
filled up ; and that even if such a transition is only con- 
ceived as a leap from a lower to a higher level in the same 
species, such a leap is only another word for an inexplic- 
able mystery. But such a change cuts asunder the 
identity of the being which precedes it and the being 
which succeeds it. (4.) 

The first appearance, then, of man in nature was the 
appearance of a new being in nature ; and this fact was 
relatively to the then order of things miraculous ; no more 
physical account can be given of it than could be given of 
a resurrection to life now. What more entirely new and 
eccentric fact indeed can be imagined than a human soul 
first rising up amidst an animal and vegetable world? 
Mere consciousness — was not that of itself a new world 
within the old one ? Mere knowledge — that nature her- 
self became known to a being within herself, was not that 
the same ? Certainly man was not all at once the skilled 
interpreter of nature, and yet there is some interpretation 
of nature to which man as such is equal in some degree. 
He derives an impression from the sight of nature which 



jo Influence of the [Lect. 

an animal does not derive ; for though the material spec- 
tacle is imprinted on its retina, as it is on man's, the brute 
does not see what man sees. The sun rose then, and the 
sun descended, the stars looked down upon the earth, the 
mountains climbed to heaven, the cliffs stood upon the 
shore, the same as now, countless ages before a single 
being existed who saw it. The counterpart of this whole 
scene was wanting — the understanding mind ; that mirror 
in which the whole was to be reflected; and when this 
arose, it was a new birth for creation itself, that it became 
known, — an image in the mind of a conscious being. But 
even consciousness and knowledge were a less strange and 
miraculous introduction into the world than conscience. 

Thus wholly mysterious in his entrance into this scene, 
man is now an insulation in it : he came in by no physical 
law, and his freewill is in utter contrast to that law. What 
can be more incomprehensible, more heterogeneous, a more 
ghostly resident in nature, than the sense of right and 
wrong? What is it ? Whence is it? The obligation of 
man to sacrifice himself for right is a truth which springs 
out of an abyss, the mere attempt to look down into which 
confuses the reason. (5.) Such is the juxtaposition of 
mysterious and physical contents in the same system. Man 
is alone, then, in nature ; he alone of all the creatures com- 
munes with a Being out of nature ; and he divides himself 
from all other physical life by prophesying, in the face of uni- 
versal visible decay, his own immortality. 

But man's situation in nature being such, his original 
entrance a miracle, his sojourn an interpolation in the phy- 
sical system, a world within a world — a life of conscious- 
ness, freewill, conscience, reason, communion with God, 
sense of immortality insulated as an anomaly in the midst 
of matter and material law ; is it otherwise than in accor- 
dance with this fact that the Divine method of training and 
educating this creature should be marked by distinctive and 



Ill] Imagination on Belief 71 

anomalous features ? If man himself is an exception to 
nature, why should not his providential treatment be the 
same ? Why should not that economy be divided occa- 
sionally from the order of nature by the same mystery and 
chasm which divides its subject from it ? The being is an 
isolated being — isolated in his commencement and in his 
destiny — for whom miracles are designed. These Divine 
acts are concerned with the education of man, his instruc- 
tion, the revelation of important truths to him, and his 
whole preparation and training for another world ; but this 
being the case, what does such a dispensation of miracles 
amount to but this, that man has been educated in connec- 
tion with his own mysterious origin and fountain-head, and 
that the same extraordinary agency which produced his 
first entrance into the world directed his course in it. An 
anomalous situation bears corresponding fruits. " The 
soul of man," says Lord Bacon, "was not produced by 
heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God : 
so that the ways and proceedings of God with spirits are 
not included in nature ; that is in the laws of heaven and 
earth ; but are reserved to the law of His secret will and 
grace." 1 

It is indeed avowed by those who reduce man in common 
with matter to law, and abolish his insulation in nature, 
that upon the admission of freewill, the objection to the 
miraculous is over ; and that it is absurd to allow exception 
to law in man, and reject it in nature. (6.) 

What has been said may be collected and abridged in one 
pregnant position — that man while in this world is placed 
in relations to another ; which is a supernatural relation- 
ship within nature. Could we imagine a person, who had 
not conceived the idea of religion, seeing for the first time 
the act of prayer — his surprise and perplexity at the sight 
would truly indicate what a remarkable insertion in nature 

1 A Confession of Faith, vol. ii. p. 482. 



7 2 Influence of the [Lect. 

this relationship to the unseen world was. So far from the 
two worlds standing totally apart, human reason itself 
places them in connexion ; and this connexion naturalizes 
a miracle. The same Divine policy which has imparted 
this double scope to reason, and instituted in this world 
our relations to another, only goes a step further when it 
gives us a message or communication from that world. The 
school which calls itself Secularist sees this result involved 
in this premiss, and therefore cuts off revelation at the root 
by denying that we have any relations to another world 
at all ; by the maxim, " Act for the world in which you 
live ; while you are in this world you have nothing to do 
with another." (7.) 

To conclude, then, let us suppose an intelligent Christian 
of the present day asked, not what evidence he has of 
miracles, but how he can antecedently to all evidence think 
such amazing occurrences possible ; he would reply, ' You 
refer me to a certain sense of impossibility which you sup- 
pose me to possess, applying not to mathematics but to 
facts. Now on this head I am conscious of a certain natu- 
ral resistance in my mind to events unlike the order of 
nature. But I resist many things which I know to be cer- 
tain ; infinity of space, infinity of time, eternity past, 
eternity future, the very idea of a God and another world. 
If I take mere resistance therefore for denial, I am confined 
in every quarter of my mind, I cannot carry out the 
very laws of reason, I am placed under conditions which 
are obviously false. I conclude, therefore, that I may resist 
and believe at the same time. If Providence has implanted 
in me a certain expectation of uniformity or likeness in 
nature, there is implied in that very expectation resistance 
to an unlike event ; which resistance does not cease even 
when upon evidence I believe the event, but goes on as a 
mechanical impression, though the reason counterbalances 
it. Resistance therefore is not disbelief, unless by an act 



Ill] Imagination on Belief j$ 

of my own reason I give it an absolute veto, which I do not 
do. My reason is clear upon the point, that there is no 
disagreement between itself and a miracle as such.' 

Such a reply would be both true itself, and also a caution 
against a mistake which both younger and older minds are 
apt to fall into, that of confounding the resistance of im- 
pression to a miracle with the veto of reason. Upon the 
facts of the Gospel history being first realized, they neces- 
sarily excite this resistance to a greater extent than they 
did when they were mainly accepted by habit ; but this 
resistance is in itself no disbelief, though some by the very 
mistake of confounding it with disbelief at last make it such, 
when in consequence of this misconception they begin to 
doubt about their own faith. 

Nor is it dealing artificially with ourselves to exert a force 
upon our minds against the false certainty of the resisting 
imagination — such a force as is necessary to enable reason 
to stand its ground, and bend back again that spring of im- 
pression against the miraculous which has illegally tight- 
ened itself into a law to the understanding, Reason does 
not always prevail spontaneously and without effort even 
in questions of belief; so far from it, that the question 
of faith against reason may often be more properly termed 
the question of reason against imagination. It does not 
seldom require faith to believe reason, isolated as she may 
be amid vast irrational influences, the weight of custom, the 
power of association, the strength of passion, the vis inertice 
of sense, the mere force of the uniformity of nature as a 
spectacle — those influences which make up that power of 
the world which Scripture always speaks of as the anta- 
gonist of faith. 



LECTURE IV 

BELIEF IN A GOD 

Hebrews xi. 3 

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word 
of God. 

THE peculiarity of the argument of miracles is that it 
begins and ends with an assumption; I mean an 
assumption relatively to that argument. We assume the 
existence of a Personal Deity prior to the proof of miracles 
in the religious sense; but with this assumption the 
question of miracles is at an end ; because such a Being 
has necessarily the power to suspend those laws of nature 
which He has Himself enacted. 

For, the Divine power assumed, vain would it be to throw 
the impossibility of such an interruption on the Divine 
will — as if the act were contrary to the Divine perfections ; 
and as if it argued inconsistency and unsteadiness in the 
Deity that, having established the order of nature, He 
should disturb it by exceptional acts. For it can argue no 
inconsistency in the Divine will to institute an order of 
nature for one purpose and suspend it for another. The 
essential uniformity and regularity of Divine action is a 
purely arbitrary conception, and certainly one not borrowed 
from any criterion of excellence in human conduct. God 
cannot depart indeed from His absolute purpose, but it does 
not follow from that, that an unvaried course of action is 
His purpose. The order of nature is not founded upon a 



Belief in a God 75 



theatrical principle, as if it were a grand procession, any 
interruption of which was in itself desecration : its merit 
lies in its utility ; it is necessary for human life, and animal 
life too, which otherwise could not be sustained, because 
there would be no knowing what to expect or what to 
provide against from hour to hour. But for this practical 
use, nothing would signify less than whether the whole 
material universe were in order or disorder. But if the 
merit of the order of nature lies in its use, there is no 
reason why it should not be suspended, if there is use in 
suspending it. 

The question of miracles is thus shut up within the 
inclosure of one assumption, viz. that of the existence of a 
God. When we state this, however, it is replied that this 
very conception of God, as a personal omnipotent Being, is 
a peculiar conception for which there is no evidence in 
material nature. ' Everybody,' it is said, 'must collect from 
the order and harmony of the physical universe the exist- 
ence of a God, but in acknowledging a God, we do not there- 
by acknowledge this peculiar or doctrinal conception of a 
God. We see in the structure of nature a Mind, a universal 
Mind, but still a Mind which only operates and expresses 
itself by law. Nature only does and only can inform us of 
mind in nature, the partner and correlative of organized 
matter. Nature, therefore, can speak to the existence of a 
God in this sense, and can speak to the omnipotence of 
God in a sense coinciding with the actual facts of nature ; 
but in no other sense does nature witness to the existence 
of an Omnipotent Supreme Being. Of a universal Mind 
out of nature nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence 
which does not possess an inherent limit in nature, she 
says nothing either. And therefore that conception of a 
Supreme Being which represents Him as a Spirit inde- 
pendent of the physical universe, and able from a 
standing-place external to nature to interrupt its order, is 



J 6 Belief in a God [Lect. 

a conception of God for which we must go elsewhere. 
That conception is obtained from revelation, which is 
asserted to be proved by miracles. But that being the 
case, this doctrine of Theism rests itself upon miracles, and 
therefore miracles cannot rest upon this doctrine of 
Theism.' (ij 

If the premiss then of this argument is correct, and this 
doctrine of Theism is from its standing-ground in nature 
thrown back upon the ground of revelation, this conse- 
quence follows ; and more, for miracles being thrown back 
upon the same ground on which Theism is, the whole 
evidence of revelation becomes a vicious circle; and the 
fabric is left suspended in space, revelation resting on 
miracles and miracles resting on revelation. But is this 
premiss correct ? 

It is then to be admitted that historically, and looking 
to the general actual reception of it, this conception of God 
was obtained from revelation. Not from the first dawn of 
history to the spread of Christianity in the world, do we 
see in mankind at large any belief in such a Being. The 
vulgar believed in many gods, the philosopher believed in 
a Universal Cause; but neither believed in God. The 
philosopher only regarded the Universal Cause as the 
spring of the Universal machine, which was necessary to 
the working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised to 
a separate order of being from them. Theism was dis- 
cussed as a philosophical not as a religious question, as one 
rationale among others of the origin of the material uni- 
verse, but as no more affecting practice than any great 
scientific hypothesis does now. Theism was not a test 
which separated the orthodox philosopher from the hetero- 
dox, which distinguished belief from disbelief; it estab- 
lished no breach between the two opposing theorists; it 
was discussed amicably as an open question; and well 
it might be. for of all questions there was not one 



IV] Belief in a God 77 

which could make less practical difference to the philoso- 
pher, or, upon his view, to anybody, than whether there 
was or was not a God. Nothing would have astonished 
him more than, when he had proved in the lecture hall the 
existence of a God, to have been told to worship Him. 
1 Worship whom?' he would have exclaimed: 'worship 
what ? worship how V Would you picture him indignant 
at the polytheistic superstition of the crowd and manifest- 
ing some spark of the fire of St. Paul, " when he saw the 
city wholly given to idolatry," you could not be more mis- 
taken. He would have said that you did not see a plain 
distinction; that the crowd was right on the religious 
question, and the philosopher right on the philosophical; 
that however men might uphold in argument an infinite 
abstraction, they could not worship it ; and that the hero 
was much better fitted for worship than the Universal 
Cause ; fitted for it not in spite of but in consequence of 
his want of true divinity. The same question was decided 
in the same way in the speculations of the Brahmans. 
There the Supreme Being figures as a characterless imper- 
sonal essence, the mere residuum of intellectual analysis, 
pure unity, pure simplicity. No temple is raised to him, 
no knee is bended to him. Without action, without will, 
without affection, without thought, he is the substratum of 
everything, himself a nothing. The Universal Soul is the 
unconscious Omnipresent Looker-on; the complement, as 
co-extensive spectator, of the universal drama of nature; 
the motionless mirror upon which her boundless play and 
sport, her versatile postures, her multitudinous evolutions 
are reflected, as the image of the rich and changing sky is 
received into the passive bosom of the lake. Thus the 
idea of God, so far from calling forth in the ancient world 
the idea of worship, ever stood in antagonism with it : the 
idol was worshipped because he was not God, God was not 
worshipped because He was. One small nation alone out 



78 Belief in a God [Lect. 

of all antiquity worshipped God, believed the -universal 
Being to be a personal Being. That nation was looked 
upon as a most eccentric and unintelligible specimen of 
humanity for doing so; but this whimsical fancy, as it 
appeared in the eyes of the rest, was cherished by it as the 
most sacred deposit ; it was the foundation of its laws and 
polity; and from this narrow stock this conception was 
engrafted upon the human race. 

But although this conception of the Deity has been re- 
ceived through the channel of the Bible, what communi- 
cates a truth is one thing, what proves it is another : the 
truth once possessed is seen to rest upon grounds of natural 
reason. The theory of a blind plastic nature might account 
for some imaginable world, but does not account for this 
world. For we naturally attribute to the design of a per- 
sonal Being, a contrivance which is directed to the exist- 
ence of a personal Being ; if an elaborate bodily organiza- 
tion issues in the life of myself — a person, I cannot avoid 
concluding that there is at the bottom of it the intention 
of a personal being that I should live. From personality 
at one end, I infer personality at the other ; and cannot 
suppose that the existence which is contrived should be 
intelligent and moral, and the contriver of it a blind 
irrational force. The proof of a personal Deity does not 
rest upon physical organization alone, but on physical 
organization adapted to the wants of moral beings. The 
Bible therefore assumes this truth rather than formally com- 
municates it ; the first chapter of Genesis proceeds upon it 
as proved ; and the prophet though he speaks as a prophet, 
still also speaks as a man on this subject. He proclaims 
this idea of God as a plain truth of human reason, which 
the world did not see only because it was blinded by folly ; 
he ridicules polytheism with indignation and sarcasm ; he 
foretells the ultimate universal worship of the One God. 
He sees with the eye of prophecy, and of reason too, that 



IV] Belief in a God 79 

the true idea of God cannot remain for ever in a corner, 
but must some day find access to the whole mind of the 
human race, which is made for its reception ; to the expul- 
sion of the false religions of the world. 

Not, however, that the existence of a God is so clearly 
seen by reason as to dispense with faith (2) ; not from any 
want of cogency in the reasons, but from the amazing 
nature of the conclusion — that it is so unparalleled, tran- 
scendent, and inconceivable a truth to believe. It requires 
trust to commit one's self to the conclusion of any reason- 
ing, however strong, when such as this is the conclusion ; 
to put enough dependence and reliance upon any premisses 
to accept upon the strength of them so immense a result. 
The issue of the argument is so astonishing, that if we do 
not tremble for its safety, it must be on account of a prac- 
tical principle in our minds which enables us to confide and 
trust in reasons, when they are really strong and good ones. 
Which principle of trust is faith — the same principle by 
which we repose in a witness of good character who in- 
forms us of a marvellous occurrence — so marvellous that 
the trust in his testimony has to be sustained by a certain 
effort of the reasonable will. 

The belief, therefore, in the existence of a God is not 
because it is an act of reason, any the less an act of faith. 
Because faith is reason, only reason acting under particular 
circumstances. When reason draws conclusions which are 
in accordance with experience, which have their parallels 
in the facts which we are conversant with in the order of 
nature and in common life, then reason is called reason : 
when reason draws conclusions which are not backed by 
experience, and which are not paralleled by similar facts 
within our ordinary cognizance, then reason is called faith. 
Faith, when for convenience' sake we do distinguish it from 
reason, is not distinguished from reason by the want of 
premisses, but by the nature of the conclusions. Are our 



8o Belief in a God [Lect. 

conclusions of the customary type ? Then custom imparts 
the full sense of security. Are they not of the customary 
but of a strange and unknown type ? Then the mechani- 
cal sense of security is wanting, and a certain trust is re- 
quired for reposing in them, which we call faith. But that 
which draws these conclusions is in either case reason. We 
infer, we go upon reasons, we use premisses in either case. 
The premisses of faith are not so palpable as those of 
ordinary reason, but they are as real and solid premisses 
all the same. Our faith in the existence of a God and a 
future state is founded upon reasons, as much so as the 
belief in the commonest kind of facts. The reasons are in 
themselves as strong, but because the conclusions are mar- 
vellous and are not seconded and backed by known parallels 
or by experience, we do not so passively acquiesce in them: 
there is an exertion of confidence in depending upon them 
and assuring ourselves of their force. The inward energy 
of the reason has to be evoked, when she can no longer 
lean upon the outward prop of custom, but is thrown back 
upon herself, and the intrinsic force of her premisses. Which 
| reason not leaning upon custom is faith : she obtains the 
latter name when she depends entirely upon her own in- 
sight into certain grounds, premisses, and evidences, and 
follows it, though it leads to transcendent, unparalleled, and 
supernatural conclusions. 

We may remark that when reason even in ordinary life 
or in physical inquiry is placed under circumstances at all 
analogous to those of religion, reason becomes, as a conse- 
quence of that situation, a kind of faith. We have a very 
different way of yielding to reasons in common life, accord- 
ing as the conclusions to which they lead accord with or 
diverge from the type of custom. We accept them as a 
matter of course in the former case, it requires an effort to 
accept them and place dependence upon them in the 
latter; which dependence upon them in the latter case 



IV] Belief in a God 81 

therefore is a kind of faith. Indeed, the remark may be 
made that a kind of faith appears to be essential for prac- 
tical confidence in any reasoning whatever and any pre- 
misses, when we are thrown back upon ourselves and do 
not act mechanically in concert with others. And we fre- 
quently see persons who, when they are in possession of 
the best arguments, and, what is more, understand those 
arguments, are still shaken by almost any opposition, be- 
cause they want the faculty to trust an argument, when 
they have got one ; which is not the case with others who 
can both understand and trust too ; wherein we see the 
link which connects faith with self-confidence and strength 
of will. In religion, then, where conclusions are so totally 
removed from the type of custom, and are so vast and 
stupendous, this applies the more strongly ; but in truth, 
all untried conclusions need faith, whatever strong argu- 
ments there may be for them. When a scientific man sees 
various premisses conspiring to direct him to some new 
truth or law in nature, the aptness with which these coin- 
cide and fall in with each other may amount to such strong 
evidence, that he may feel virtually certain of his dis- 
covery, and yet he does not feel it quite secure till it has 
stood the test of some crowning experiment. His reason, 
then, in the interim, is faith, he trusts his premisses, he feels 
practically sure that they cannot mislead him, he sees in 
their whole mode of combining and concurring a warrant 
for the issue, although the final criterion is still in pros- 
pect. Such a condition of mind is analogous to that of 
the religious believer, who perceives in nature, moral and 
physical (for we are speaking only of natural religion at 
present), the strongest arguments for certain religious con- 
clusions — such as the existence of a God, and a future life; 
and yet waits for that final certification of these great 
truths, which will be given in another world. " For we are 
saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope : for what 

F 



82 Belief in a God [Lect. 

a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? But if we hope 
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." 
Faith, then, is unverified reason ; reason which has not yet 
received the verification of the final test, but is still ex- 
pectant. 

Indeed, does not our heart bear witness to the fact that 
to believe in a God is an exercise of faith ? That the uni- 
verse was produced by the will of a personal Being, that 
its infinite forces are all the power of that one Being, its 
infinite relations the perception of one Mind — would not 
this, if any truth could, demand the application of the 
maxim — Credo quia imjoossibile ? Look at it only as a con- 
ception, and does the wildest fiction of the imagination 
equal it ? No premisses, no arguments therefore, can so 
accommodate this truth to us, as not to leave the belief in 
it an act of mental ascent and trust ; of faith as distin- 
guished from sight. Divest reason of its trust, and the 
universe stops at the impersonal stage — there is no God. 
And yet if the first step in religion is the greatest, how is 
it that the freest and boldest speculator rarely declines it? 
How is it that the most mysterious of all truths is a uni- 
versally accepted one ? 'What is it which guards this 
truth ? What is it which makes men shrink from deny- 
ing it ? Why is atheism a crime ? Is it that authority 
still reigns upon one question, and that the voice of all 
ages is too potent to be withstood ? 

But this belief, however obtained, being assumed in the 
argument of miracles, in discussing this argument, we have 
to do not with the proof of a personal Deity, but only with 
the natural consequences of this belief, supposed to be 
true. To extract consequences indeed out of admissions 
before the sense of such admissions is defined or under- 
stood, is an illegitimate proceeding ; and from the mere ad- 
mission of a God in some sense, we could not thus argue. 
But if not only the existence of a Deity in some sense is 



IV] Belief in a God 83 

admitted, but if that sense is defined, and the religious con- 
ception of the Deity as a moral and personal Being is 
admitted to be true ; this is a ground upon which we may 
fairly argue, and from which we may deduce consequences ; 
that is to say, we may examine what the belief means, and 
what is necessarily and naturally implied in this belief 
supposed to be true. 

But this conception of a God necessarily implies omni- 
potence ; because the Universal Cause must have power, 
and universal power, if He has will ; which, according to 
this religious and moral conception of Him, He has. No 
will, no power, indeed, for oar very idea of power im- 
plies will; but together with will the Universal Being 
possesses power, and power commensurate with Himself ; 
including the particular power involved in a miracle. For 
any cause has as such the power to suspend its own effects, 
depending as these do altogether upon it, provided only it 
has the will ; if voluntary power set them going the same 
power can stop them. The Universal Cause therefore has 
the same power ; and either God has will and He can inter- 
rupt the order of nature ; or He has not a will and He is 
not in the religious sense God. 

A personal Deity, therefore, can suspend the order of 
nature; but all admit a personal Deity who admit the 
principle of religious worship. We use the word ' per- 
sonal ' only to denote that in the Deity which constitutes 
Him more than a force, to express that He is a moral Being, 
a Being with will. All worship implies such a personal 
Being to whom it is addressed. For I do not, of course, 
include under worship that passionate contemplation of 
nature which is sometimes called worship. The ecstacy of 
atheistic poets at the sight of nature was the effect indeed of 
beholding a real manifestation of the Divine glory; nor 
can we witness without emotion their absorption in the 
sublime vision and spectacle, which transfixed them and 



84 Belief in a God [Lect. 

made them mute, imparting to their wild insatiable life its 
one solitary rest ; but this ecstacy was not worship, because 
it only contemplated the Divine glory as impressed upon 
matter, and not in relation to its Fountain-head. Worship 
as a religious act implies a personal object. Can we — I 
do not say ought, but can we worship a force, a law, a prin- 
ciple ? One who professed to do so would stand convicted 
not of a foolish act, or of a fanciful act, or of a superstitious 
act, but of a total mistake in imagining that he had done the 
act at all. Because it is an impossible act. If men woi ship, 
then, if they pray, if they address themselves to the Deity, 
if they make petitions to Him, they acknowledge Him in 
that very act as a personal Deity. Whatever doubts mere 
philosophers and inquirers may entertain, believers and 
worshippers, those who admit, rather I should say who de- 
mand religion, who feel it to be necessary for them, a want 
of their nature, which nothing else can supply — in a word, 
religious men — grant a Deity in the special sense now 
mentioned ; but in this special sense is involved the con- 
sequence now mentioned, viz. that a Deity in this sense 
must possess omnipotence, and power over nature, to sus- 
pend her laws. 

The primary difficulty of philosophy indeed relating to 
the Deity is action at all ; from the inconceivableness of 
which, in connection with the Divine nature, it was that 
the ancient subtle philosophical conception of God as a 
mere universal substratum arose. If action is conceded at 
all, there is no difficulty about miraculous action. But 
prayer certainly implies a Deity who can act, who can do 
something for us ; prayer, therefore, concedes the first great 
point relating to the Deity, and in conceding that concedes 
the whole. What, indeed, is a Deity deprived of miraculous 
action but a Deity deprived of action ; and what is a Deity 
deprived of action but an impersonal force which is no object 
of prayer? (3.) 



IV] Belief in a God 85 

Is this consequence then of the acceptance of a personal 
Deity intercepted by saying that this special conception of 
a Deity is derived from " mystery and faith," and that " all 
religion as such ever has been and must be a thing entirely 
sui generis?" (4.) No: because the evidence or the foun- 
dation of a conception has nothing to do with the natural 
consequence of that conception if admitted ; the pledge 
which is contained in believing and acting upon that con- 
ception. Let the believer say that his belief in such a 
Being is founded upon " mystery and faith;" well, but 
upon whatever ground he believes this truth, he believes 
it ; and if he believes it, he believes it with its natural con- 
sequence involved in it. Can it be said that religion does 
not interfere with physics ? (5.) Not if the religion be 
the belief here mentioned ; for this belief is the belief in a 
God who can interfere with nature, — in a Universal Cause 
who has a will ; and who has, with that will, the power to 
suspend physical effects. 

On the fundamental question, indeed, of the Divine 
Omnipotence, we assent to some known familiar limitations ; 
such as that God cannot do what is contrary to His will 
and nature, and cannot do what is contradictory to neces- 
sary truth: but these are no precedents for the kind of 
limitation which the withdrawal of an interrupting physical 
power from the Divine Omnipotence is. Because these 
are only verbal and apparent limitations ; power implying 
will, it is no real restraint upon Divine power that it cannot 
oppose will ; and a contradiction to necessary truth being 
nothing, nothing is taken away in the abstraction of the 
power to effect it. Whereas the other is a real and actual 
limitation of the Divine power — unless indeed it is as- 
sumed that the order of nature is necessary, and therefore 
its case a case of necessary or mathematical truth. Upon 
the assumption that these two cases stand upon the same 
ground, it would indeed follow that the denial of the Divine 



86 Belief in a God [Lect. 

power to interrupt the order of nature was no more a real 
limitation of it, than the denial of the power to contradict a 
mathematical truth. But this assumption is self-evidently 
untenable and absurd. 

If, therefore, the power of interrupting the order of 
nature is to be severed from the stock of the Divine Omni- 
potence, it can only be done by one of two conceptions, 
either the conception of an impersonal Deity, or the con- 
ception of a confessedly and avowedly limited Deity — 
limited in reality, I mean, and not only verbally. With the 
former I have upon my assumption nothing to do. The 
latter is an attempted compromise between an Omnipo- 
tent God and no God : denying Him absolute power over 
the material universe, while professing to leave Him 
such power as to constitute Him an object of prayer and 
worship. 

A limited Deity was a recognised conception of antiquity. 
Confounded and astonished by the vastness of a real Omni- 
potence, and the inconceivableness of the acts involved in 
it, the ancients took refuge in this idea as all that reason 
could afford of that Godship which reason could not deny. 
Two great difficulties lay at the bottom of this conception, 
the creation of matter and the existence of evil ; the former 
producing the doctrine of the coeternity of matter with the 
Deity ; the latter producing the doctrine of the coeternity 
of evil with the Deity, as a rival, antagonist, and check 
upon Him : whether in the modified form of an original 
irrational soul or refractoriness of matter; or the more 
developed form of Ditheism and Manichseanism. Of these 
two great ancient difficulties one is now obsolete. A man 
of science now only professes to ground an hesitation to 
admit a beginning in nature upon observation, not upon any 
antecedent objection to creation. It is indeed an instruc- 
tive fact, and shows how little dependence can be placed 
upon first-sight notions of impossibility which reign supreme 



IV] Belief in a God Sy 

m many minds for their day, that this great impossibility 
of antiquity, the difficulty of difficulties which had brooded 
like a nightmare upon the philosophers of ages, was dis- 
missed by Hume in these two words of a footnote, — " That 
impious maxim of ancient philosophy ex nihilo nihil Jit, by 
which the creation of matter was excluded, ceases to be a 
maxim according to this philosophy." 1 The existence of 
evil, however, is no obsolete difficulty, but still retains its 
ground, and suggests even to modern perplexity the idea of a 
limited Deity. One who excepts the physical world from 
the Divine power may still appeal to the alleged parallel of 
evil. ' Here, at any rate/ he may say, ' is no shadow of 
fiction, or empty abstraction ; evil is not, like a mathe- 
matical contradiction, a nothing, however called so by the 
Schoolmen, but plainly something, a fact, a palpable fact. 
The inability to prevent evil, therefore, cannot be dealt 
with as a verbal limit only to the Divine power, like the 
inability to accomplish a mathematical contradiction ; it is 
a real limit : and one real limit is a precedent for another.' 

But the answer to this is, that with reference to the 
higher ends of the universe, we do not know that evil is 
not necessary, and its prevention a contradiction to neces- 
sary truth — that we do not know, therefore, that the ina- 
bility to dispense with it does not come under the head of 
a verbal limit to Divine omnipotence, like the inability to 
accomplish a mathematical contradiction. 

Assuming the existing constitution of man, we see the 
necessity here mentioned for evil. Any plain man would 
say that for high moral virtue to be produced without evil, 
either as a contingency in the shape of trial or a fact in the 
shape of suffering, was upon the existing constitution of 
man an utter impossibility : that upon this datum evil was 
a condition of the problem. 

Nor is this only a didactic truth of the moralist, but a 

1 Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, sec. 1 2. 



88 Belief in a God [Lect. 

descriptive one of poetry. Dramatic poetry, by which I 
mean all which takes man and human character as its sub- 
ject, produces its captivating impression and effect, by a 
representation of the issue of the struggle with evil ; by 
the final image which it leaves on the mind of the human 
character as it comes out of that struggle, strengthened by 
difficulty, softened by grief, or calmed by misfortune. The 
truth it communicates is the same as the moralist's, only 
put into a pictorial instead of a disciplinarian form, and in- 
tended mainly to impart not the sense of responsibility, 
but pleasure. The spectacle which delights is a human 
character which is the production of trial. Secure for the 
moment ourselves, we enjoy the sight of the sublime result 
of the contest with evil in others, the conclusion in which 
the process of pain issues. And thus it is that men admire 
the very opposites of themselves. The proud who shrink 
as from a knife from their own slightest humiliation, are 
captivated by the spectacle of humility in another. The 
moral images of the ambitious man, which he raises in his 
own mind to look at with affection, are they likenesses of 
himself? No: they are the suffering, the sad, the fallen, 
those who by adversity have been raised above the world. 
He is a pleased beholder of the moral effect of life's evils, 
himself only grasping at its prizes ; and the very depriva- 
tions which are death to himself, are his gratification in 
their result upon the character of another. He bears wit- 
ness against himself, and " delights in the law of God after 
the inner man, but sees another law in his members." 

Assuming the existing constitution then of man, we account 
for evil — for evil in the general, though the particulars are be- 
yond us— as a necessary contingency attaching to trial, a ne- 
cessary fact for discipline. The Bible, in assuming this con- 
stitution of man, assumes with it this solution of evil, and 
incorporates evil in the Divine scheme. The ancient philo- 
sopher had but an imperfect discernment of the necessity of 



IV] Belief in a God 89 

evil even uvon this assumption, even under the actual con- 
ditions of man's nature ; not being able to rid himself com- 
pletely of the idea that human nature could be cured by 
philosophy, instead of by the chastening rod. He did but 
half see that which the Christian philosopher sees with the 
utmost distinctness — the use in fact of evil ; the want of 
which partial satisfaction was the cause of the desperate- 
ness of his rationale of evil, as a rival of the Deity ; for 
had he distinctly seen its conditional necessity, he would 
not have despaired about the root of the enigma. 

It is indeed true that to the question why man was so 
constituted as to render evil thus necessary, no answer can 
be given. Upon this condition evil is no insoluble mys- 
tery, but is accounted for ; upon abstract grounds it is an 
insoluble mystery. The argument, however, of the Divine 
Omnipotence does not require that we should know that 
evil is necessary ; but ouly that we should not know that 
it is not: because even in the latter case we are under the 
check of a prohibition; we cannot assert that the exist- 
ence of evil does not stand upon the same grounds as 
necessary truth, and therefore that the inability to dispense 
with it is not, like the inability to contradict necessary 
truth, a mere verbal limitation of the Divine power. 

The same answer applies to the objection to the Divine 
Omnipotence arising from man's free-will. Is a physical 
limitation of that Divine attribute, it may be asked, any 
greater limitation than the moral one involved in the 
power of the human will to resist the Divine ? But 
although the existence of such a power in the creature is 
incomprehensible to us, we do not know that his posses- 
sion of this liberty is not necessary for the ultimate forma- 
tion of his moral character ; and therefore that the forma- 
tion of that character without it is not a contradiction to 
necessary truth ; analogous to a mathematical absurdity. 

Does an opponent demand the same rights of ignorance 



90 Belief in a God [Lect. 

on the side of his own position ? They are not enough for 
him ; for his argument requires that he should make the 
positive assertion of a contradiction to necessary truth in a 
suspension of physical law ; nor indeed can he claim them, 
for by our reason Ave see there is no such contradiction. 

The conception of a limited Deity then, i.e. a Being 
really circumscribed in power, and not verbally only by a 
confinement to necessary truth, is at variance with our 
fundamental idea of a God; to depart from which is to 
retrograde from modern thought to ancient, and to go from 
Christianity back again to Paganism. The God of ancient 
religion was either not a personal Being or not an omni- 
potent Being ; the God of modern religion is both. For, 
indeed, civilization is not opposed to faith. The idea of 
the Supreme Being in the mind of European society now 
is more primitive, more childlike, more imaginative, than 
the idea of the ancient Brahman or Alexandrian philoso- 
pher : it is an idea which both of these would have derided 
as the notion of a child — a negotiosus Deus, who interposes 
in human affairs and answers prayers. So far from the 
philosophical conception of the Deity having advanced 
with civilization, and the poetical receded, the philoso- 
phical has receded and the poetical advanced. The God 
of whom it is said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two 
farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God; 
but even the very hairs of your head are numbered," is the 
object of modern worship. Nor, again, has civilization 
shewn any signs of rejecting doctrine. Certain ages are 
indeed called the ages of faith ; but the bulk of society in 
this age believes that it lives under a supernatural dispen- 
sation ; and accepts truths which are not less supernatural, 
though they have more proof, than some doctrines of the- 
middle ages : and if so, this is an age of faith. It is true 
most people do not live up to their faith now; neither did 
they in the middle ages. 



IV] Belief in a God 91 

Has not modern philosophy, again, shewn both more 
strength and acuteness, and also more faith, than the ancient? 
I speak of the main current. Those ancient thinkers who 
reduced the Supreme Being to a negation, with all their 
subtlety wanted strength, and settled questions by an 
easier test than thai, of modern philosophy. The merit of 
a modern metaphysician is, like that of a good chemist or 
naturalist, accurate observation in noting the facts of mind. 
Is there a contradiction in the idea of creation ? Is there 
a contradiction in the idea of a personal Infinite Being? 
He examines his own mind, and if he does not see one, he 
passes the idea. But the ancient speculators decided, with- 
out examination of the true facts of mind, by a kind of 
philosophical fancy; and according to this loose criterion, 
the creation of matter and a personal Infinite Being were 
impossibilities ; for they mistook the inconceivable for the 
impossible. And thus a stringent test has admitted what 
a loose but capricious test discarded ; and the true notion 
of God has issued safe out of the crucible of modern meta- 
physics. Beason has shewn its strength, but then it has 
turned that strength back upon itself; it has become its 
own critic ; and in becoming its own critic it has become 
its own check. 

If the belief then in a personal Deity lies at the bottom 
of all religious and virtuous practice, and if the removal of 
it would be a descent for human nature, the withdrawal of 
its inspiration and support, and a fall in its whole standard; 
the failure of the very breath of moral life in the individual 
and in society; the decay and degeneration of the very 
stock of mankind ; — does a theory which would withdraw 
miraculous action from the Deity interfere with that 
belief ? If it would, it is but prudent to count the cost of 
that interference. Would a Deity deprived of miraculous 
action possess action at all ? And would a God who can- 
not act be God ? If this would be the issue, such an issue 



92 Belief in a God 



is the very last which religious men can desire. The 
question here has been all throughout, not whether upon 
any ground, but whether upon a religious ground and by 
religious believers, the miraculous as such could be rejected. 
But to that there is but one answer, that it is impossible 
in reason to separate religion from the supernatural, and 
upon a religious basis to overthrow miracles. 



LECTURE V 

TESTIMONY 

Acts i. 8 

Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaa, and in 
tiamaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. 

THE force of testimony rests upon a ground of reason ; 
because our reason enables us to discern men's char- 
acters and understandings — that they are honest men and 
men of sufficient understanding ; which being assumed, the 
truth of their reports is implied and included in this 
original observation respecting the men themselves, and 
may be depended upon so far as this observation may be 
depended upon. It is true we believe many things which 
are told us without previous knowledge of the persons who 
are our informants, but ordinarily we assume honesty and 
competency in men, unless we have reason to suppose the 
contrary. 

But such being the nature of testimony, it may be asked, 
' Do we receive through this second-hand channel of know- 
ledge, truths upon which our eternal interests depend? 
In other words, can we suppose that these truths would be 
embodied in visible occurrences, which can only reach us 
through testimony ? Can we think that our own relations 
to the Divine Being depend upon such a medium, that is 
to say, upon facts brought to us through it ? that human 
testimony interposes between ourselves and God, and that 
His communications to us travel by this circuitous route, 



94 Testimony [Lect. 

going back to a distant point in history, and returning 
thence to us by a train of historical evidence?' The 
answer to this is, that certainly testimony does not satisfy 
all the wants of the human mind in the matter of evidence, 
because upon the supposition that a most wonderful event 
of the deepest importance to us has taken place, we have 
naturally a longing for direct and immediate knowledge of 
that event, as distinguished from knowing of it through 
the medium of other persons, especially if the intervening 
chain of testimony is long. In the matter of evidence, 
however, the question is not what satisfies, but what is suf- 
ficient ; and therefore if God has adopted any medium or 
channel of evidence by which to convey His communica- 
tions to us, all that we are practically concerned to ask is 
— is it a reasonable one ? is it a proof of a natural force and 
weight, such as is accommodated to the constitution of our 
minds ? If testimony be this kind of proof, there is 
nothing incongruous in its being chosen to convey even the 
most important spiritual truths to us ; it is enough if, how- 
ever secondary a channel, it does convey them to us. 

It is to be admitted, however, that the force of testimony 
has certain inherent limits or conditions when applied to 
the proof of miracles. And first, I would observe in limine 
that that which testimony is capable of proving must be 
something within the bounds of reason; i.e. something 
which, in the fair exercise of reasonable supposition, we 
can imagine possible. The question is sometimes put — 
' What if so many apparently competent witnesses were to 
assure you that they had seen such and such a miracle — 
mentioning the most monstrous, absurd, fantastic, and 
ludicrous confusion of nature, of which mere arbitrary 
conception could raise the idea in the mind — would you 
believe them V But the test of mere conception is not in 
its own nature a legitimate test of the force of testimony; 
because conception or fancy is a simply wild and unlimited 



V] Testimony 95 

power of imagining anything whatever, and putting to- 
gether any forms we please in our minds ; but such a 
power is in no sort of correspondence with actual possi- 
bility in nature. In the universe, under the Divine 
government, there can be nothing absolutely wild or out- 
landish : if physical lav/ does not constitute the bound of 
possibility, some measure of possibility there must be, and 
our very idea of God is such a measure. Pure, boundless 
enormity, then, is itself incredible, and therefore out of the 
reach of testimony, although it is imaginable. Nor indeed 
is the supposition of sound and competent testimony to 
such merely imaginable extravagances and excesses of 
deviation from order a lawful one, because it is practically 
impossible that there should be a body of men of good 
repute for understanding and honesty to witness to what is 
intrinsically incredible. We are only concerned with the 
miraculous under that form and those conditions under 
which it has actually by trustworthy report taken place, as 
subordinated to what has been called " a general law of 
wisdom," i.e. to a wise plan and design in the Divine 
Mind ; under which check the course of miracles has, so to 
speak, kept near to nature, just diverging enough for the 
purpose and no more. 

But besides this preliminary limit to the force of testi- 
mony, which excludes simple monstrosity and absurdity, 
another condition has also been attached to it by divines, 
which applies to it in the case of any miracle whatevei, 
viz. that all evidence of miracles assumes the belief in the 
existence of a God. (1.) It may be urged that, according 
to the argument of design (which does not apply to the 
coincidences in nature only, but to any case of coincidence 
whatever), a miracle, supposing it tine, proves and need not 
assume a supernatural agent. But were this granted, the 
evidence of a Universal Being must still rest on a universal 
basis ; a miracle being only a particular local occurrence ; 



96 Testimony [Lect. 

and therefore for the proof of a God we should still have to 
fall back upon the evidence of nature. Even the imaginary 
case, which has been put, of its being written in our very 
sight on the sky by a wonder-working agency — There is a 
God, could not upon this account prove the existence of a 
God. But even could a miracle legitimately prove it, it 
must still assume the belief in it to begin with ; because 
it could not prove it to an atheist who had already with- 
stood the proof of it in nature. A mind that had not been 
convinced by the primary evidence of a Deity, must con- 
sistently reject such a second evidence, and therefore 
unless a man brings the belief in a God to a miracle, he 
does not get it from the miracle. 

But the admission of divines that the evidence of 
miracles assumes the belief in a God was not made with a 
view to an imaginary instance, but with reference to the 
actual situation of mankind at large upon this subject, and 
the medium through which in the nature of the case the 
evidence of miracles must ordinarily be received, which is 
testimony. This admission is based upon the relations in 
which an atheist necessarily stands to human testimony 
upon this subject, and the mode in which his want of 
belief in a God affects the value of that testimony. 

The effect, then, of atheism upon the value and weight 
of human testimony to miracles must be, as regards the 
atheist himself, that of invalidating such testimony, and 
depriving it of all cogency. For consider the light in 
which an atheist must regard the whole body and system 
of religious belief in the world, and the whole mass of 
religious believers, so far as they are affected by their 
belief. What other view can he take of religion but that 
it is simple fanaticism, or of religious men but that they 
are well meaning but unreasonable and mistaken enthu- 
siasts ? Let a man decide, not that there is not a God, but 
only that there is no evidence that there is one, and what 



"Vj Testimony 



is the immediate result ? He looks around him, and he 
sees that a conclusion which in his own judgment stands 
upon no rational grounds, is embraced by all religious 
people with the firmest practical certainty, and treated as a 
truth, which it is almost madness to doubt of. But though 
he could not condemn men as enthusiasts for taking a 
different view of evidence from himself, provided they only 
maintained their own view of the question as the preferable 
and more probable one, he must look upon this absolute 
unhesitating and vehement faith in that which he considers 
to be without rational proof, as passionate and blind zeal. 
He must regard systematic devotion, constant addresses, 
prayer and service to a Being of whose existence there is 
not evidence, as downright fanaticism. But this being the 
case, he must necessarily estimate the testimony of such 
persons in matters specially connected with this credulous 
belief of theirs, at a very light rate : upon his own ground 
it is only reasonable that he should treat with the greatest 
suspicion all reports of miraculous occurrences from re- 
ligious believers; whose evidence upon ordinary subjects 
he will admit to be as sound as his own, inasmuch as in 
the common affairs of life they show discretion enough ; 
but whom he must, upon his own hypothesis, regard as 
utterly untrustworthy upon the particular topic of religion. 
That is their weak point, the subject upon which they go 
wild. Are we to believe a man upon the very theme upon 
which he is deluded ? No : upon other questions he may 
be as competent a witness as anybody else, but upon this 
particular one he is the victim of hallucinations. Such is 
the unavoidable judgment of an atheist, and upon his own 
ground a correct judgment, upon the testimony of religious 
and devout men to miraculous interpositions of the Deity. 
Suppose one of these to come to him and say, ' I have seen 
a miracle;' he would reply, 'I will believe you or not 
according to what you mean by a miracle : if this miracle 

G 



8 Testimony [Lect. 

which you come to tell me of is only an extraordinary 
natural fact, and has nothing to do with religion, I will 
believe you as readily as I would anybody else ; but if it is 
a miracle in a religious sense, I do not consider you a trust- 
worthy witness to such a fact ; you are in an unreasonable 
condition of mind upon the question of religion altogether ; 
and being under a delusion upon the very evidence of a 
God at all, you are not likely to possess discretion or 
sobriety as a spectator of what you call an interposition of 
His. Upon that subject you are a partial, fanciful, and 
nighty witness.' 

The evidence of miracles thus assumes the belief in a 
God, because in the absence of that belief all the testimony 
upon which miracles are received labours under an incur- 
able stigma. And this it is which constitutes the real 
argument of the celebrated Essay of Hume. This essay is 
a philosophical attempt, indeed, to decide the question 
whether certain events took place eighteen centuries ago 
by a formula; and as the inductive formula places a 
miracle outside of possibility, Hume's evidential formula 
secures a balance of evidence against it. It does this by 
establishing a common measure and criterion of proba- 
bility, by which both the miracle and the testimony to it 
are to be tried, viz. experience. 1 ' The source of our belief 
in the uniformity of nature is experience, and this experi- 
ence is constant ; the source of our belief in testimony is 
also experience, but this experience is variable, because 
testimony has sometimes deceived us : we follow the con- 
stant experience which is against the miracle in preference 
to the variable which is in favour of it.' Testimony is thus 
reduced to a mere derivative of experience ; and then the 

1 Because, although this philosopher has expunged the argument of 
experience out of the tablet of human reason, he professes that he has no 
other test of truth to fall back upon but that, and that he must take 
either that or none. 



V] Testimony 99 

formula, that the falsehood of the testimony is less contra- 
dictory to experience than the truth of the miracle settles 
the question. But in the first place belief in testimony is 
not a mere derivative from experience, but is an original 
principle in our nature and has an antecedent ground of 
reason ; inasmuch as prior to all observation of the results 
of testimony, or the combinations of testimony with truth 
viewed as a series of conjunctions, we believe an apparently 
honest man because he is such. And in the next place a 
rule which would oblige everybody to disbelieve fresh intel- 
ligence, whenever the facts were unprecedented, is an im- 
possible one ; it could not work in human affairs ; and it 
in fact breaks down in the writer's own hands ; who gives 
in an hypothetical instance a formal specimen of that kind 
of marvel which is capable of being proved by testimony ; 
and in so doing describes a fact which is totally contrary to 
human experience. But though his formula encounters 
the natural fate of infallible recipes and solutions, every 
reflecting reader must see the force and the truth, upon the 
writer's own ground, of his assertion of the obliquity, the 
exaggeration, and the passion of religious testimony ; and 
must admit that a philosopher who thinks that mankind 
are under a delusion in worshipping God, has a right to 
think them under an equal delusion when they testify to 
Divine interpositions. 

Having stated the fundamental admission of divines that 
the evidence of miracles assumes the belief in Supernatural 
Power, I next observe that this condition of miraculous 
evidence gives us the distinction between miracles and 
ordinary facts as matters of credit. A miracle differs from 
an ordinary fact in the first place as a subject of credit, 
simply as being an extraordinary fact, and we naturally re- 
quire a greater amount of evidence for it on that account. 
There is, indeed, the greatest unlikeliness that any occur- 
rence whatever, which comes into our head by chance or 



ioo Testimony [Lect. 

intentional conception, though it is of the commonest kind, 
will really happen as it is imagined ; and from this great 
antecedent improbability of the most ordinary events, it 
has been inferred that no calculable difference exists be- 
tween the improbability of ordinary facts and the impro* 
bability of miracles ; or therefore in the amount of evidence 
required for them. But to draw such an inference is to 
confound two totally distinct grounds of improbability. If 
all that I can say of the likelihood of an event's occurrence 
is that it comes into my head to imagine it, that is no 
reason whatever for it, and the absence of all reason for 
expecting an event constitutes of itself the improbability 
of that event. But this kind of antecedent improbability, 
being simply the absence of evidence, is immediately 
neutralized by the appearance of evidence, to which it 
offers no resistance : while that improbability which arises 
from the marvellous character of an event naturally offers 
a resistance to evidence, which must therefore be the 
stronger in order to overcome such resistance. (2.) 

But if we take in the whole notion of a miracle not as 
a marvellous event only, but the act of a Supernatural 
Being, a miracle is still more widely distinguished from an 
ordinary event as a subject of credit and evidence. The 
evidence of an ordinary fact does not assume any ground 
or principle of faith for the reception of it. It is true that 
all belief in testimony implies faith in this sense, that we 
accept upon the report of other persons the occurrence of 
some event or the existence of some object which we have 
not seen with our own eyes. But common testimony is so 
complete a part of the present order of things and of the 
whole agency by which natural life is conducted, and the 
belief in it is so necessary and so matter-of-course an act 
in us, that we cannot regard the mere belief in testimony 
as faith in the received sense of that word. We may never 
have seen a well-known place in our own country or 



V] Testimony i o i 

abroad, but if the place is universally talked of, if it 
appears in all maps and books of travels and geography, 
and if anybody would be considered to be out of his mind 
if he doubted its existence ; it would be a misapplication 
of language to call the journey thither an act of faith. 
The very merit of faith is that we make something of a 
venture in it ; which we do when we believe in testimony 
against our experience. But when the facts which are the 
subject of testimony are in full accordance with our experi- 
ence, then, the testimony being competent and sufficient, 
belief is unavoidable, it is as natural to an atheist or a 
materialist as it is to a believer ; and therefore in such 
cases belief in testimony does not involve the principle of 
faith. But a miracle in assuming the existence of super- 
natural power, assumes a basis of faith. A miracle has a 
foot, so to speak, in each world ; one part of it resting upon 
earth, while the other goes down beyond our intellectual 
reach into the depths of the invisible world. The sensible 
fact is subject to the natural law of testimony, the Divine 
intervention rests upon another ground. A miracle is both 
an outward fact, and also an invisible and spiritual fact, 
and to embrace the twofold whole, both testimony and 
faith are wanted. 

It has been a fault in one school of writers on evidence, 
that in urging the just weight of testimony, they have not 
sufficiently attended to this distinction, and have over- 
looked the deep gulf which divides facts, which assume a 
basis of religious faith, from ordinary facts as subjects of 
evidence. These writers are too apt to speak of miracles 
as if they stood completely on a par with other events as 
matters of credit, and as if the reception of them only 
drew upon that usual and acknowledged belief in testi- 
mony by which we accept the facts of ordinary history. 
But this is to forget the important point that a miracle is 
on one side of it not a fact of this world, but of the in- 



102 Testimony [Lect 

visible world ; the Divine interposition in it being a super- 
natural and mysterious act : that therefore the evidence for 
a miracle does not stand exactly on the same ground as the 
evidence of the witness-box, which only appeals to our 
common sense as men of the world and actors in ordinary 
life ; but that it requires a great religious assumption in 
our minds to begin with, without which no testimony in 
the case can avail ; and consequently that the acceptance 
of a miracle exercises more than the ordinary qualities of 
candour and fairness used in estimating historical evidence 
generally, having, in the previous admission of a Super- 
natural Power, first tried our faith. 

This admission of divines, again, that the evidence of 
miracles assumes the belief in a Personal Deity, supplies 
us with the proper ground on winch to judge of some posi- 
tions which have been recently promulgated on the subject 
of miracles and their evidence. " No testimony," it has 
been said, " can reach to the supernatural : testimony can 
only apply to an apparent sensible fact ; that it is due to 
supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous 
belief and assumption of the parties." (3.) 

Does then this statement only mean to distinguish in the 
case of a miracle between the fact and the cause, that the 
fact alone can be a subject of testimony, not a super- 
natural cause ? It is, in that case, an undeniably true 
statement ; for the supernatural cause of a fact is a truth 
which in its own nature cannot be reached by ocular evi- 
dence or attestation. Testimony does not pretend to in- 
clude in its report of an extraordinary fact the rationale of 
that fact ; it' does not profess to penetrate beyond the 
phenomenon, and put itself in contact with the source and 
original of it, and thence bring back the intelligence that 
that source lies outside of physical law in a special act of 
the Divine will. This species of evidence has its own 
office, which is to attest visible and sensible occurrences ; 



V] Testimony 



unless it is worthless testimony it can do no less, and if it 
is the best conceivable testimony it can do no more. What 
those facts amount to, how they are to be interpreted, what 
they prove, depends upon another argument altogether than 
that of testimony. I accept upon the report of eye- 
witnesses certain miraculous occurrences ; that these occur- 
rences are interpositions of the Deity depends upon the 
existence of a Deity to begin with, and next upon the 
argument of design or final causes ; because the extra- 
ordinary coincidence of miraculous occurrences with a pro- 
fessed Divine commission on the part of the person who 
announces or commands them, proves a Divine intention 
and act. That which constitutes a miraculous occurrence 
a miracle in the common or theological acceptation, is 
therefore not obtained from simple testimony ; though it is 
obtained immediately by our reason from the data which 
testimony supplies. Thus understood, the position to 
which I have referred amounts to the statement that 
testimony is testimony, and not another kind of evidence ; 
it does not deny the supernatural cause of the occurrences 
in question, but only that testimony itself proves it ; the 
supernatural explanation of a miracle depending upon 
reasons which are at hand, but which are not contained 
within the simple report of the witness. 

2. The position, therefore, that " no testimony can reach 
to the supernatural," if it accepts recorded miracles as 
facts, and only excludes from the department of testimony 
their cause, is a true though an unpractical distinction. 
Nor can this position be objected to again if it is only to 
be understood as meaning that testimony is not sufficient 
to prove the facts, without the previous assumption of 
Supernatural Power or the existence of God in the mind 
of the receiver of such testimony. For in that case it only 
amounts to the admission which divines have always made 
upon the very threshold of the sunject of miracles. The 



104- Testimony [Lect. 

great truth upon which the evidence of all lesser instances 
of supernatural power depends is the truth of the super- 
natural origin of this world — that this world is caused by 
the will of a Personal Being ; that it is sustained by that 
will, and that therefore there is a God who is the object of 
prayer and worship. A man who does not hold the exist- 
ence of this Supernatural Being cannot reasonably be ex- 
pected to attach much weight to reports of amazing 
preternatural occurrences, laid before him as religions facts 
connected with their own religious interests and feelings and 
persuasions by earnest believers in religion, who can only 
figure in his eye as devotees and enthusiasts. And if 
atheism thus invalidates the testimony to miracles, the be- 
lief in a God is wanted as a condition of its validity. 

3. But is the statement that no " testimony can reach 
to the supernatural" made upon the ground that the mira- 
culous fact is intrinsically incredible and impossible, and 
that a violation of physical law is no more capable of being 
proved by testimony than a mathematical absurdity ? In 
that case the position is both religiously and philosophically 
untenable ; because a fact which is contrary to the order of 
nature is not thereby contradictory to reason ; and what is 
not contradictory to reason is a subject of testimony. But 
it is replied that the rule that " no testimony can reach to 
the supernatural" does not exclude the miraculous fact 
from the province of testimony, but only the interpretation 
of that fact as a violation of law ; that the extraordinary 
occurrence need not be in reality a physical anomaly, in 
which case this rule still leaves it a subject of testimony; 
" that it is not the mere fact but the cause or explanation 
of it which is the point at issue." (4.) If this however is 
to be taken as the intended scope and force of this rule, it 
escapes the charge of violating common sense only to incur 
that of being futile, unmeaning, and nugatory. Testimony 
cannot as has been said, reach to more than the occurrence 



V] Testimony 105 

itself; the explanation of this occurrence, whether it is or 
is not anomalous, and whether it does or does not proceed 
from a supernatural cause, depends on other considerations 
which are not included in the report of a witness. If this 
rule then means no more than this, its meaning is a great 
falling short of its pretension. It certainly appears at first 
sight to deny that miraculous facts are subjects of testi- 
mony, and with this meaning it is a distinct and intelli- 
gible position, though a false one. If it only signifies that 
testimony cannot reach to more than its very nature admits 
of its reaching to, the rule is in that case chargeable with 
the great fault of appearing to mean a great deal, and really 
meaning nothing. 

It may however be suggested that in many cases cer- 
tainly this distinction between miraculous facts and viola- 
tions of law is practically untenable, because whatever 
may be said of some kind of miracles, others are — the facts 
themselves are — plainly violations of physical law, and can 
be nothing else ; they are plainly outstanding and anoma- 
lous facts, which admit of no sort of physical explanation. 
Admit the real external occurrence of our Lord's Eesurrec- 
tion and Ascension, and the interpretation of it as a miracle 
or contradiction to the laws of nature is inevitable. Lan- 
guage has been used indeed as if all the facts of the Gos- 
pel history could be admitted and the miracles denied; 
but when we examine the sense in which the word 'fact' 
is used in that language, we find that it is not used in the 
ordinary sense, but in the sense of an inexplicable erroneous 
impression on the minds of the witnesses. 

For, indeed, this distinction is no sooner made than 
abandoned; it is asserted that some kind of miraculous 
facts are intrinsically as facts incredible ; and in the place 
of the distinction between the miraculous fact and the vio- 
lation of law, is substituted the distinction between the 
fact, and the impression of the fact upon the minds of the 



106 Testimony [Lect. 

witnesses. (5.) Testimony, it is said, can prove the im- 
pression upon the minds of the witnesses, but cannot " from 
the nature of our antecedent convictions" prove the real 
occurrence of the fact, that " the event really happened in 
the way assigned." This indeed, upon the supposition ol 
the intrinsic incredibility of the facts, is the only hypo- 
thesis left to account for honest testimony to them. We 
have no alternative then but to fall back upon something 
unknown, obscure, and exceptional in the action of human 
nature, in the case of the witnesses ; some hidden root of 
delusion, some secret disorganization in the structure of 
reason itself, or interference with the medium and channel 
between it and the organs of sense ; whence it must have 
arisen that those who did not see certain occurrences, were 
fully persuaded that they did see them. But such an 
explanation requires the intrinsic incredibility of the facts, 
and is illegitimate without it ; because if they are not in 
their own nature incredible, no occasion has come for re- 
sorting to such an explanation ; there is no reason why I 
should resist the natural effect of testimony, and institute 
this unnatural divorce between the impression and the fact 
at all. 

The position then that "no testimony can reach to the 
supernatural," is correct or incorrect according as it is 
based upon the impossibility of the supernatural, or the 
inadequacy of mere testimony — its inherent defectiveness 
upon such subject-matter, unless supplemented by a ground 
of faith within ourselves. We allow the need of a pre- 
vious assumption to give force to the evidence of miracles ; 
at the same time we are prepared to vindicate the validity 
and the force of testimony, upon that previous assumption 
being made. Upon the supposition of the existence of a 
God and of Supernatural Power in the first instance, com- 
petent testimony to miraculous facts possesses an obliga- 
tory force; it becomes by virtue of that supposition the 



V] Testimony 107 

testimony of credible witnesses to credible facts ; for the 
facts are credible if there is a power equal to being their 
cause ; and the witnesses are credible if we assume the 
truth and reasonableness of their religious faith and wor- 
ship. Untrustworthy and passionate informants upon the 
atheistic theory, liable to any delusion and mistake, because 
upon this theory their very belief in religion in the first 
instance is a delusion ; upon the assumption of the truth 
of religion they become sound informants ; the change of 
the hypothesis is a change in the character of the testi- 
mony ; the stigma which attached to it upon the one basis is 
reversed upon the other, and what was bad evidence upon 
the irreligious is good upon the religious rationale of the 
world. In this state of the case, then, testimony, when it 
speaks to the miraculous, has a natural weight and credit 
of the same kind as that which it possesses in ordinary 
matters: and the attested visible fact is the important 
thing, upon the truth of which the conclusion that it is a 
miracle follows by the natural laws of reasoning. For I 
have shewn it to be a practically untenable distinction that 
" it is not the mere fact, but the cause or explanation of it, 
which is the point at issue." 

But if the evidence of miracles demands in the first 
instance, as the condition of its validity and force, the belief 
in the existence of a God ; if it begs the question at the 
very outset of Infinite and Supernatural Power, as involved 
in a personal Author of the universe; it may be urged 
that so great, so inconceivable an assumption as this, amounts 
to placing miracles upon a ground of faith instead of a 
ground of historical evidence. You profess, it may be said, 
to prove the credibility of the supernatural, and you do so 
by assuming in limine the actual existence of it — the exist- 
ence of supernatural power. Let this only be understood, 
then, and there need be no further controversy on this sub- 
ject. " A miracle ceases to be capable of investigation by 



1 08 Testimony [Lect. 

reason or to own its dominion : it is accepted on religions 
grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influ- 
ence of faith." (6.) 

I reply that miracles undoubtedly rest upon a ground of 
faith so far as they assume a truth which it requires faith 
to adopt, viz. the existence of a God: hut that such a 
ground of faith is compatible with historical evidence for 
them. Do we mean by faith, a faculty wholly distinct 
from reason, which without the aid of premisses founds 
conclusions purely upon itself, which can give no account 
of itself, or its own convictions ? Is faith, in short, only 
another word for arbitrary supposition ? In that case to 
relegate miracles to a ground of faith is simply to deprive 
them of all character of matters of fact. A matter of faith 
is then specially not a matter of fact, and miracles could 
only take place in the region and sphere of faith by not 
taking place at all. The individual uses the totally dis- 
tinct principles of faith and reason according to the sub- 
ject-matter before him. In the world of reason he judges 
according to evidence, he believes whatever he believes on 
account of certain reasons ; in the world of faith he believes 
because he believes. Faith in this case is no basis for a 
matter of fact : a miracle of this sphere is not an occur- 
rence of time and place, within the pale of history and geo- 
graphy, but an airy vision which evaporates as the eye of 
reason rests upon it, and melts into space. The fact of 
faith is adapted to the eye of faith only. 

But does faith mean belief upon reasonable grounds ? 
Is it as much reason as the most practical common sense 
is, though its grounds are less sensible and more connected 
with our moral nature ? In this sense faith can support 
matter of fact, and a miracle in resting upon it, is not 
thereby not an event of history. If a God who made the 
world is not a mere supposition, a notion of the mind, but 
a really existing Being, this Being can act upon matter 



V] Testimony 109 

either in an ordinary way or in an extraordinary way ; and 
His extraordinary action on matter is a visible and his- 
torical miracle. " For evidence," it has been said, " of a 
Deity working miracles, we must go out of nature and be- 
yond reason." (7.) If this is true, a miracle cannot rest 
upon rational evidence ; but if an Omnipotent Deity is a 
conclusion of reason, it can. 

But if a miracle is itself a trial of faith, how, it is asked, 
can it serve as the evidence of something farther to be 
believed ? " You admit," it is said, " that this evidence of 
a revelation is itself the subject of evidence, and that not 
certain but only probable evidence; that it is received 
through a chain of human testimony ; that the belief in it 
is against all our experience, and demands in the first 
instance the assumption of the existence of supernatural 
power ; in a word, that a miracle must be proved in spite 
of difficulties itself, before it can prove anything else. 
But how can a species of evidence which is thus encum- 
bered itself, be effective as the support of something else ? 
So far from miracles being the evidence of revelation, are 
they not themselves difficulties attaching to revelation?" (8.) 

This double capacity, then, of a miracle as an object of 
faith, and yet evidence of faith, is inherent in the principle 
of miraculous evidence; for belief in testimony against 
experience being faith, a miracle which reaches us through 
testimony is necessarily an object of faith ; while the very 
purpose of the miracle being to prove a revelation, the same 
miracle again is evidence of faith. But the objection to this 
double attitude of a miracle admits of a natural answer. 
My own reflection indeed upon my own act of belief here, 
my own consciousness of the kind of act which it is in me, 
is witness enough that belief in a miracle is an exercise and 
a trial of faith. But if faith is not mere supposition, but 
reasonable belief upon premisses, there is no reason why a 
conclusion of faith should not be itself the evidence of 



1 1 o Testimony [Lect. 

something else. It is sufficient that I am rationally con- 
vinced that such an event happened ; that whatever diffi- 
culties I have had in arriving at it that is my conclusion. 
That being the case, I cannot help myself, if I would, using 
it as a true fact, for the proof of something farther of which 
it is calculated in its own nature to be proof. A probable 
fact is probable evidence. I may therefore use a miracle 
as evidence of a revelation, though I have only probable 
evidence for the miracle. The same fact may try faith in 
one stage and ground faith in another, be the conclusion of 
certain premisses and the premiss for a farther conclusion ; 
i.e. may be an object of faith and yet an evidence of faith. 

It is not indeed consistent with truth, nor would it con- 
duce to the real defence of Christianity, to underrate the 
difficulties of the Christian evidence ; or to disguise this 
characteristic of it, that the very facts which constitute the 
evidence of revelation have to be accepted by an act of 
faith themselves, before they can operate as a proof of that 
further truth. More than two centuries ago this subject 
exercised the deep thoughts of one whom we may almost 
call the founder of the philosophy of Christian evidence ; 
and who now in the writings of Bishop Butler rules in our 
schools, gives us our point of view, and moulds our form of 
reflection on this subject. The answer of Pascal to the 
objection of the difficulties of the Christian evidence, was 
that that evidence was not designed for producing belief as 
such, but for producing belief in connection with, and as 
the token of, a certain moral disposition ; that that moral 
temper imparted a real insight into the reasons for and the 
marks of truth in the Christian scheme, and brought out 
proof which was hidden without it : which proof, therefore, 
though it did not answer every purpose which evidence can 
answer, answered its designed purpose : in other words that 
the purpose of evidence was qualified by the purpose of 
trial; it being the Divine intention that the human heart 



V] Testimony 1 1 1 

itself should be 1 he illuminating principle, throwing light 
upon that evidence, and presenting it in its real strength. 1 
This position then requires the caution to go along with 
it, that we have no general liberty in individual cases of 
unbelief to attribute this result to moral defects, because 
we do not know what latent obstructions of another kind 
there may have been to the perception of truth; but with this 
caution it is a valid reply to the objection made ; because it 
supplies a reason which accounts for the want of more full 
and complete evidence than we possess, and a reason which 
is in consistency with the Divine attributes. (9.) It pre- 
sents the Christian evidence as under Providence limited and 
measured for our use. One school of writers on Christian 
evidence has assumed too confidently that any average 
man, taken out of the crowd, who has sufficient common 
sense to conduct his own affairs, is a fit judge of that evi- 
dence — such a judge as was contemplated in the original 
design of it. One great writer especially, of matchless argu- 
mentative powers, betrays this defect in his point of view : 
and in bringing out the common-sense side of the Christian 
evidence — the value of human testimony — with irresist- 
ible truth and force, allows his very success to conceal from 
him the insufficiency of common sense alone. 

The ground of Pascal is in effect that, as an original means 
of persuasion, the Christian evidence is designed for the few, 
and not for the many. Because Christianity is the religion 

1 " II n'etait done pas juste qu'il parut d'une maniere manifestement 
divine et absolument capable de convaincre tous les hommes ; mais il 
n'etait pas juste aussi qu'il vint d'une maniere si cachee, qu'il ne put etre 
reconnu de ceux qui le chercheraient sincerement. II a voulu se rendre 
parfaitement connaissable a ceux-la ; et ainsi, voulant paraitre a decouvevt 
a ceux qui le eherchent de tout leur cceur, et cache a ceux qui le fuient de 
tout leur cceur, il tempere sa connaissance en sorte qu'il a donne des 
marques de soi visibles a ceux qui le eherchent, et obscures a ceux qui ne 
le eherchent pas. II y a assez de lumiere pour ceux qui ne desirent que 
de voir, et assez d'obscurite pour ceux qui ont une disposition contraire." 
— Pascal, ed. Fangcre, vol. ii. p. 151. (9.) 



ii2 Testimony [Lect. 

of a large part of the world, and prophesies its own posses- 
sion of the whole world, it does not follow that the evidence 
of it must be adapted to convince the mass ; — I mean to 
convince them, on the supposition of their coming without 
any bias of custom and education to decide the question by 
evidence alone. It is enough if that argument is addressed 
to the few, and if, as the few of every generation are con- 
vinced, their faith becomes a permanent and hereditary 
belief by a natural law of transmission. The Christian 
body is enlarged by growth and stationariness combined ; 
each successive age contributing its quota, and the acquisi- 
tion once made remaining. This is the way in which, as a 
matter of fact, Christianity became the religion of the 
Eoman empire. In no age, from the apostolic downwards, 
did the evidence of the Gospel profess to be adapted to 
convince the mass ; it addressed itself to the few, and the 
hereditary belief of the -mass followed. Christianity 
has indeed at times spread by other means than its 
evidences, by the sword, and by the rude impulse of un- 
civilized people to follow their chiefs ; but whenever it has 
spread by the power of its evidences, this has been their 
scope. The profession of the world has been the result, 
but the faith of the few has been the original mark of the 
Gospel argument ; though doubtless many who would not 
have had the strength of mind to acknowledge the force of 
that argument, by an original act of their own, have by a 
Christian education grown to a real inward perception of it; 
and hereditary belief has thus, by providing a more indul- 
gent trial, sheltered individual faith. And the same prin- 
ciple of growth can at last convert the world ; however slow 
the process the result will come, if Christianity always 
keeps the ground it gets ; for that which always gains and 
never loses must ultimately win the whole. 



LECTURE VI 

UNKNOWN LAW 

St. John v. i 7 
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 

MIEACLES are summarily characterized as violations of 
the laws of nature. But may not the Scripture mir- 
acles, however apparently at variance with the laws of 
nature, be instances of unknown law ? This question is 
proposed in a different spirit by different persons ; by some 
as a question upon which their belief in these miracles 
depends ; by others only as a speculative question, though 
one answer to it would be more in accordance with their 
intellectual predilections than another. 

In entering upon this question, however, we must at the 
outset settle one important preliminary, viz. what we mean 
by the Scripture miracles. The distinction proposed in our 
question is a distinction between those miracles as facts, 
and those miracles as miracles, in the popular sense ; but 
if we only regard the miracles as facts at first, we must still 
know what those facts are respecting which the question, 
whether they are properly miraculous, i.e. violations of law 
or not, is raised. Are we to take those facts as they stand 
in Scripture, or as seen to begin with through an interpre- 
tative medium of our own, reduced to certain supposed 
true and original events, of which the Scripture narrative 
is a transcendental representation ? As a previous condi- 

II 



ii4 Unknown Law [Lect. 

tion of the consistency of those facts with law, are the facts 
themselves to undergo an alteration ? I reply, that in an 
inquiry into the particular question whether the Scripture 
miracles may or may not be instances of unknown law, the 
question whether those miracles originally took place, or 
not, in the way in which they are recorded — in other words, 
the question of the authenticity of those miracles, is one 
with which I have nothing to do. Whether or not the 
facts of the Scripture narrative are the true and original 
facts which took place is a question which belongs to the 
department of evidence, and one which must be met in its 
own place ; but a philosophical inquiry into the consistency 
or not of the Scripture miracles with law must take those 
miracles as they stand. If not, what are the facts, the 
physical interpretation of which is in dispute ? We have 
not got them before us, and the inquiry must stop for want 
of material. It is important to understand the necessity 
which there is for separating these two questions, because 
the mind of an inquirer at first is very apt to confuse them, 
and to suppose that the speculation upon the question of 
unknown law gives him a right in the first instance par- 
tially to reduce the facts of Scripture, in order to accommo- 
date them to the inquiry. It must therefore be understood 
that the ulterior question as to law in miracles assumes the 
miraculous facts as recorded. Even if the unknown law 
affects the facts themselves, as, upon the theory that they are 
only impressions upon the mind of the witnesses, it does, 
still the facts which are supposed to be accounted for by 
impression are the facts stated in Scripture, and not other 
facts. 

Upon the question then of the referribleness of miracles 
to unknown law, we must first observe that the expression 
' unknown law,' as used here, has two meanings, be- 
tween which it is important to distinguish ; i.e. that it 
means either unknown law, or unknown connexion with 



VI] Unknown Law 115 

known law. I will take the latter of these two meanings 
first. 

1. With respect then to unknown connexion with known 
law, the test of the claim of any extraordinary isolated and 
anomalous fact to this connexion is, whether it admits of 
any hypothesis being made respecting it, any possible 
physical explanation, which would bring it under the head 
of any known law. A law of nature in the scientific sense, 
which is the sense in which we understand the term in 
this inquiry, is in its very essence incapable of producing 
single or insulated facts ; because it is the very repetition 
and recurrence of the facts which makes the law, which 
law therefore implies and is a class of facts. It follows 
that no single or exceptional event can come by direct 
observation under a law of nature; but that if it comes 
under it at all it can only do so by the medium of some 
explanation by which it is brought out of its apparent 
isolation and singularity into the same situation with a 
class of facts, i.e. some explanation which shows that the 
exceptional character of the fact is owing to a peculiarity 
in the situation of its subject-matter, and not in the laws 
which act upon it. It may be that there is something ex- 
traordinary in the position of a natural substance, upon 
which, however, the known laws of nature are operating all 
the time, producing their proper effects only under un- 
wonted circumstances ; as in the case of the explained 
descent of a meteoric stone, where the laws which act are 
the common laws of gravity and motion, and the only 
thing singular is the situation of the stone. There is thus 
an important distinction between insulated and anomalous 
facts, and the common current facts of nature, with respect 
to their reduction to law. The common current facts of 
nature, where not yet reduced to law, are brought under 
law, if they are brought under it, by direct observation ; by 
fixing upon the invariable conjunctions of antecedent and 



1 1 6 Unknown Law [Lect. 

consequent, which are really happening, and only are not 
as yet observed. The weather, e.g. is part of the order of 
nature of which the law alone is unknown to us, the facts 
being of constant occurrence ; the weather therefore comes 
under law, to whatever extent it does come under it at 
present, by direct observation ; the invariable conjunctions 
being of real occurrence, and only requiring to be seen. 
By tracing those conjunctions back we should have the 
law of weather from that point ; and could we trace them 
back up to the point at which they link on to the ascer- 
tained series of natural causes, then we should have the 
full law of weather. But single or exceptional facts only 
come under a law of nature by the medium of an explana- 
tion or hypothesis, which connects the deviation with the 
main line, and engrafts the anomaly upon a known stock. 

There is, indeed, besides a regular hypothetical explana- 
tion of an anomalous fact in the physical world, another and 
more obscure condition in which a fact may lie without 
suffering total disjunction from law : — when no formal 
hypothesis is at present forthcoming, but the fact holds out 
a promise of one ; presents the hints or beginnings of one, 
though they cannot yet be worked up into a scientific 
whole. The phenomenon is not wholly dark and wanting 
in all trace and vestige of physical type, but is said to 
await solution. It will be enough, however, if without 
express mention we understand this modification as in- 
cluded under the head of an explanation or hypothesis. 

So long then as an eccentric fact admits of an explana- 
tion in keeping with known law, we are not justified in 
pronouncing it to be contradictory to known law; for 
though the explanation is hypothetical, so long as it is 
admissible, we are prohibited from asserting the contrary 
to it, or the absolute lawlessness of the fact. But, on the 
other hand, take a supposed or imaginary anomalous 
occurrence — and many such are conceivable — to which this 



VI] Unknown Law 1 1 7 

whole ground of scientific explanation and anticipation 
would not apply, and in the case of which it would be all 
obviously out of place. Such an anomalous occurrence 
would be lawless, and a contradiction to known law, and 
must be set down as such. Thus, according as there is 
room or no room for scientific explanation, one kind of 
physical miracle ranks as in latent connexion with the 
system, another as outside of it. A scientific judgment 
discriminates between different types of physical marvels. 
An eccentric phenomenon within the region of man — his 
bodily and mental affections and impressions — is set down 
as an ultimately natural fact ; because there the system of 
nature is elastic, and is enabled by its elasticity to accom- 
modate and afford a place for it ; while no such prospect is 
held out to an imagined instance of irregularity in inani- 
mate nature, because the system there is rigid and inflex- 
ible, and refuses to accommodate the alien. The most ex- 
traordinary case of suspended animation is an ultimately 
natural fact ; a real violation of the law of gravity, by the 
ascent of a human body into the sky, is an ultimate 
anomaly and outstanding fact. (1.) 

Upon the question, then, whether the Gospel miracles 
may have an unknown connexion with known law, the 
criterion to be applied is whether they admit or not of a 
physical hypothesis being constructed about them, an ex- 
planation being given of them, upon which this connexion 
would follow. Upon this question then I observe, to begin 
with, that a whole class of Gospel miracles meets us in 
which the material result taken by itself, and apart from 
the manner and circumstances of its production, cannot be 
pronounced absolutely to be incapable of taking place by 
the laws of nature. Indeed, this observation may be said 
to embrace the largest class of miracles; I refer to the 
bodily cures and restorations of the functions of bodily 
organs, by which the blind received their sight, the lame 



n8 Unknown Law [Lect. 

walked, the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard. 
Suppose in any of these cases the physical result to have 
taken place as a simple occurrence without any connexion 
with a personal agent — there is nothing in the nature of 
the fact itself to exclude the supposition that it was owing 
to some unknown natural cause. A blind man, even one 
born blind, suddenly recovers his sight. Were such an 
occurrence to be reported upon good evidence at the pre- 
sent day, it would not be received as anything physically 
incredible, but would be set down, however extraordinary, 
even if quite unique, as referrible to some natural cause : 
and scientific men might proceed to suggest hypothetical 
explanations of it. The same may be said of a sudden re- 
storation of hearing, of a sudden recovery of speech, of a 
sudden recovery of the use of a limb, of a sudden recovery 
from an issue of blood, from palsy, from madness. 

But to say that the material fact which takes place in a 
miracle admits of being referred to an unknown natural 
cause, is not to say that the miracle itself does. A miracle 
is the material fact as coinciding with an express announce- 
ment or with express supernatural pretensions in the agent. 
It is this correspondence of two facts which constitutes a 
miracle. If a person says to a blind man, ' See,' and he 
sees, it is not the sudden return of sight alone that we have 
to account for, but its return at that particular moment. 
For it is morally impossible that this exact agreement of 
an event with a command or notification could have been 
by a mere chance, or, as we should say, been an extraordi- 
nary coincidence, especially if it is repeated in other 
cases. 

The chief characteristic, indeed, of miracles and that 
which distinguishes them from mere marvels, is this cor- 
respondence of the fact with a notification ; — what we may 
call the prophetical principle. For indeed, if a prophecy is 
a miracle, a miracle too is in essence a prophecy ; it con- 



VI] Unknown Law 119 

tains a correspondence between an event and an announce- 
ment ; and the essence of prophecy is the correspondence, 
not the futurity, of the event predicted. Consequently, a 
miracle can afford to dispense with the full supernatural 
character of its physical result, in consideration of this 
other source of the miraculous character, i.e. the propheti- 
cal element. No violation of any law of nature takes place 
in either of the two parts of prophecy taken separately ; 
none in the prediction of an event, none in its occurrence ; 
but the two taken together are proof of superhuman agency; 
and the two parts of a miracle, the event and the announce- 
ment of it, even if the former be in itself reducible to law, 
are, taken together, proof of the same. (2.) 

Can any physical hypothesis be framed then accounting 
for the apparently superhuman knowledge and power in- 
volved in this class of miracles, — in these instances, i.e. of 
fulfilled prophecy where an event takes place in correspond- 
ence with an announcement ; in these immediate cures of 
diseases by personal agency ? (3.) It must be evident that 
none can be, supposing the miraculous facts of Scripture to 
stand as they are recorded. While it must also be remem- 
bered that no hypothesis which ever accounted for a certain 
portion of the Scripture miracles, if one such could be ima- 
gined, would be of any service on this side, unless it also 
accounted for the whole. 

But could any scientific hypothesis be constructed, which 
would account for the conversion of water into wine, the 
multiplication of the loaves, and the resurrection of dead 
men to life? Undoubtedly if the supposition could be 
entertained that these miracles as recorded in the Gospels 
were untrue and exaggerated representations of the facts 
which really took place, a physical explanation might be 
proposed, and might even be accepted as a very probable 
one, of the facts which were supposed to be the real ones. 
But in that case the reduction of the Gospel miracles to 



1 20 Unknown Law [Lect. 

physical law would have been indebted for its success, not 
to any hypothesis of philosophy, but simply to an altera- 
tion of the facts, in accordance with a supposed more 
authentic and historical estimate of them. 

Upon one theory alone, if a tenable one, could such facts 
be reconcileable with known law ; and that is the theory 
that they were not facts, but impressions upon the minds 
of the witnesses — though impressions so strong and perfect 
that they were equivalent to facts to those who had them. 
This explanation, then, resorts for its ground to that more 
elastic and obscure department of nature above mentioned 
— the mixed bodily and mental organization of man with 
its liability to eccentric and abnormal conditions, and with 
them to delusions, and disordered relations to the external 
world. But this is a theory which is totally untenable 
upon the supposition of the truth of the facts of Scripture 
as they are recorded. An abnormal condition of the senses 
is in the first place connected with positive disease, and 
with particular diseases ; or else — if such a strange result 
has really ever arisen from such processes — with professedly 
artificial conditions of the man, produced by premeditated 
effort and skill ; of which even the asserted effects are very 
limited and fragmentary. But that numbers of men of 
serious character, and apparently in their ordinary natural 
habit, should be for years in a disordered state of relations 
to the outward world ; in particular that they should think 
that for a certain period they had been frequently seeing 
and conversing with a Person, whose disciples they had 
been, who had returned to life again after a public death ; 
when they never saw Him at that time, or spoke to Him, 
— this is absolutely incredible. And therefore the theory 
of impression is untenable upon the facts of Scripture as 
they stand, and supposes different facts. I speak of the 
theory of impression as a physical theory : some speculative 
divines have proposed the hypothesis of a miraadous im- 



VI] Unknown Law 1 2 1 

pression produced for the occasion upon the minds and 
senses of the witnesses, as one mode of the production of 
miracles in certain cases ; but such a theory, to whatever 
criticism it may be open, has nothing in common with the 
physical explanation here noticed. (4.) 

2. But now let us shift the inquiry from the ground 
which it has taken hitherto, to the other and different ques- 
tion, whether miracles may not be instances of laws which 
are as yet wholly unknown ; — this defers the question of 
the physical explanation of a miracle to another stage, 
when not only the connexion of a particular fact with law 
has to be discovered, but the law with which it is con- 
nected has to be discovered too. 

This question, then, is commonly called a question of 
"higher lav/." "All analogy," we are told, "leads us to 
infer, and new discoveries direct our expectation to the 
idea, that the most extensive laws to which we have 
hitherto attained converge to some few simple and general 
principles, by which the whole of the material universe is 
sustained.'' x A " higher law," then, is a law which com- 
prehends under itself two or more lower or less wide laws : 
and the way in which such a rationale of higher law would 
be applicable to a miracle would be this ; — that if any as 
yet unknown law came to light to which upon its appear- 
ance this or that miracle or class of miracles could be re- 
ferred as instances; in that case we could entertain the 
question whether the newly discovered law under which 
the miracles came, and the old or known law under which 
the common kind of facts come, were not both reducible 
to a still more general law, which comprehended them 
both. But before we can entertain the question of " higher 
law" as applicable to miraculous and to common facts, we 
must first have this lower law of the miraculous ones. 
Could we suppose, e.g., the possibility of some higher law 

1 Babbage's Ninth Bridgwater Treatise p. 32. 



1 2 2 Unknown Law [Lect. 

into which both electricity and gravitation might merge ; 
yet the laws of electricity and the law of gravitation both 
exist in readiness to be embraced under such higher law, 
should it ever be discovered. And in the same way, if 
miracles and the laws of nature are ever to be compre- 
hended under a higher law, we must first have both the 
laws underneath the latter, both the laws of nature and the 
laws of the miracles. 

Could we then suppose the possibility of any unknown 
laws coming to light which would embrace and account 
for miracles, one concomitant of this discovery is inevit- 
able, viz., that those fresh laws will involve fresh facts. A 
law of nature, in the scientific sense, cannot exist without 
a class of facts which comes under it ; because it is these 
facts which are the law. A law of nature is a repetition of 
the same facts with the same conjunctions ; but in order 
for the facts to take place with the same conjunctions, they 
must in the first instance take place. A law of miraculous 
recoveries of sight without such recoveries of sight, a law 
of real suspensions of gravitation without such suspensions 
of gravitation, a law of miraculous productions of material 
substances without such productions, a law of resurrections 
from the dead without resurrections from the dead, — these 
laws are absurdities. To make an imaginative supposition 
— Could we conceive that in a future age of the world it 
were observed, that persons who had passed through cer- 
tain extraordinary diseases which had then shewed them- 
selves in the human frame, returned to life again after 
shewing the certain signs of death ; — this observation, made 
upon a proper induction from recurring instances, would 
be a law of resurrection from the dead ; but nothing short 
of this would be : and this would imply a new class of 
facts, viz., recurring resurrections. 

No new class of facts, indeed, is required when an ex- 
ceptional phenomenon is explained by a known law; for a 



"VI] Unknown Law 123 

known law only involves known facts : and no new class 
of facts is required when frequent phenomena are traced to 
a new law, because the new discovered law is already pro- 
vided with the facts which come under it, which have been 
seen always themselves though their law has been un- 
known ; but when both the phenomenon is exceptional and 
its law new, that new law implies a new class of facts ; for 
facts a law must have ; which therefore if they do not now 
exist, must come into existence in order to make the law. 1 
But such being the case, what does this whole supposi- 
tion of the discovery of such an unknown law of miracles 
amount to, but to the supposition of a future new T order of 
nature ? It would indeed be difficult to say what was a 
new order of nature, if recurrent miracles with invariable 
antecedents did not constitute one. But a new order of 
nature being involved in this supposition, it immediately 
follows that this whole supposition is an irrelevant, a futile, 
and nugatory one as regards the present question. A law 
of nature in the scientific sense has reference to our expe- 
rience alone : when I speak of a law of nature, I mean a 

1 It is true that old and familiar classes of miraculous facts, so to call 
them, exist in that constant current of supernatural pretension which is a 
feature of history, and has been a running accompaniment of human nature. 
And it is true also that a vague attempt has always been going on to con- 
nect this supernaturalism with law. The science of magic in its way made 
this profession ; it mixed this object indeed with relations to demons and 
unearthly beings ; but still it treated supernaturalism as a secret of nature, 
and pretended to search and in some degree to have penetrated into this 
secret. Again, the more exalted kind of heathen thaumaturgy connected 
miraculous powers with the development of human nature, and deduced 
them from a higher humanity, as a specimen of which the celebrated Apol- 
lonius Tyanseus had them assigned to him. And the belief of rude tribes 
has subordinated mystical gifts of prophecy and second sight to the law of 
family descent. But, making allowance for exceptional cases in which it 
may have pleased the Divine power to interpose, the mature judgment of 
mankind has set aside the facts of current supernaturalism, except so far 
as they are capable of being naturally accounted for ; and has, with the 
facts, set aside all pretension to acquaintance with the law of them. 



1 24 Unknown Law [Lect. 

law of nature with this reference. A miracle therefore as 
a violation of the laws of nature assumes the same condi- 
tion, and is relative to our knowledge. A miracle is thus 
not affected by any imaginary supposition of a future diffe- 
rent order of nature, of which it would not be a violation ; 
it is irrespective of such an idea. For no new order of 
things could make the present order different: and a 
miracle is constituted by no ulterior criterion, no criterion 
which lies beyond the course of nature as it comes under 
our cognizance, but simply by this matter-of-fact test. It 
is opposed to custom, — to that universal custom which we 
call experience. But experience is the experience which 
we have. A miracle, could we suppose it becoming the 
ordinary fact of another different order of nature, would 
not be the less a violation of the present one ; or therefore 
the less a violation of the laws of nature in the scientific 
sense. 

Bishop Butler has indeed suggested " that there may be 
beings in the universe whose capacities and knowledge 
and views may be so extensive as that the whole Christian 
dispensation may to them appear natural, i. e., analogous or 
conformable to God's dealings with other parts of His 
creation, as natural as the visible known course of things 
appears to us." 1 And with respect to the beings who are 
here supposed, who have the 'knowledge of other parts of 
the universe, and of God's dispensations there, this sugges- 
tion holds good; for the occurrence of the same dispensa- 
tions, with the same antecedents in the different parts of 
the universe, would constitute an order of nature in the 
universe to those who were acquainted with it. But we 
do not possess this knowledge, and an order of nature being 
relative to knowledge, in the absence of this condition there 
does not exist this naturalness. 2 

The relation of a miracle to the laws of nature also fixes 

1 Analogy, Part i. cli. i. 2 Vid. Preface to Second Edition. 



VI] Unknown Law 125 

its relations to general laws. The only intelligible meaning 
which we can assign to general laws is, that they are the 
laws of nature with the addition of a particular theory of 
the Divine mode of conducting them ; the theory, viz., of 
secondary causes. The question whether the Deity operates 
in nature by second causes, or by immediate single acts, is 
not a question which at all affects the laws of nature in the 
scientific sense. Those laws being simply recurrent facts, 
are exactly the same, whatever be the Divine method em- 
ployed in producing those facts. But divines take up the 
subject at the point at which natural science stops, and 
inquire whether the Deity operates in the laws of nature 
by a constant succession of direct single acts, or through 
the medium of general laws or secondary causes, which, 
once set in motion, execute themselves. This is an entirely 
speculative question then, and, inasmuch as the real mode 
of the divine action is inconceivable, an insoluble one. 
The uniformity of all the facts which constitute a law of 
nature is suggestive of one originating act on the part of 
the Deity, but it is also consistent with a series of similar 
single acts ; nor is a universal action in particulars in the 
abstract more inconceivable than a Universal Being. The 
language of religion, however, has been framed upon the 
principle of what is most becoming to conceive respecting 
the Deity ; and therefore has not attributed to Him an 
incessant particular action in the ordinary operations of 
nature, which it hands over to secondary causes ; but only 
assigned this direct action to Him in His special inter- 
positions. (5.) 

General laws, then, being only the laws of nature with a 
particular conception appended to them ; if miracles are 
not reducible to the laws of nature, they are not reducible 
to general laws. Nor, indeed, considering what has been 
said, would such a reduction be very consistent with the 
reason upon which general laws stand. For if general 



126 Unknown Law [Lect. 

laws have been separated from the direct action of the 
Deity for the very purpose of reserving the latter as the 
peculiar mark of His special interpositions ; to reduce these 
special interpositions back again from direct action to 
general law, would be to undo the object of this distinction, 
and after drawing a line of demarcation to efface it again. 

The notion of general laws naturally fits on indeed to 
God's uniform operations, but is a forced addition to 
irregular and extraordinary acts. The subordination of 
miracles indeed to " general laws of wisdom," l if we under- 
stand by that phrase a plan or scheme in the Divine Mind 
which controls the production of miracles, those considera- 
tions of utility which regulate their frequency, as well as 
limit and check their type, may well be allowed; but this 
is a different use of the term. 

The inquiry has, indeed, been raised whether in the 
original design and mechanism of creation, the law or prin- 
ciple of the system may not have been so contrived that 
miracles, when they occur, are as much the inevitable con- 
sequences of that law as its regular and ordinary effects ; 
the same cause or original plan which produces the order 
of nature, producing also the exceptions to it. It is ob- 
served, in the first place, that the history of our planet, 
being composed of successive stages or periods of animal 
and vegetable life, widely different from each other, these 
several orders of nature may have been but the gradual 
evolution of one primary law, impressed upon nature on its 
first construction ; the highest law of the system being such 
that it includes all these changes under it, and that no one 
formation singly, but the whole series, constitutes the full 

1 Bishop Butler observes that " God's miraculous interpositions may 
have been all along by general laws of wisdom. Thus, that miraculous 
powers should be exerted at such times, upon such occasions, in such 
degrees, and manners, and with regard to such persons, rather than to 
others, &c, all this may have been by general laws." — Analogy, Part ii. 
ch. iv. Yid. Preface to Second Edition. 



VI J Unknown Law 127 

and adequate expression of it. And from this application 
to successive orders of nature, the same rationale is then 
applied to the order of nature and the deviation from it, or 
miracle. Neither the order of nature nor the exception to 
it alone, it is suggested, but both together, express that 
highest generalization in the structure of nature which is 
the law of the system and the whole. A calculating 
machine is so adjusted as to produce one unbroken chain 
of regularly succeeding numbers, when the law which 
governed the series fails, and another law comes in, pro- 
ducing another succession of numbers, or operating only 
in a single instance ; after which it gives way again to the 
first law. Neither of the two successions alone, nor the 
succession or the insulation alone, expresses the highest 
law of the machine, which includes them both. So, it is 
said, the order of nature and the exception to it, or miracle, 
may both be included under the original law vdiich was 
impressed upon the structure of nature. " That one or 
more men at given times shall be restored to life, may be 
as much a consequence of the law of existence appointed 
for man at his creation, as the appearance and reappearance 
of the isolated cases of apparent exception in the arithmeti- 
cal machine." 1 (6.) 

If this hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles is 
entertained as a truth of natural science, an intermitting 
law of nature as much implies recurrent facts, with the 
same invariable antecedents, as any other law of nature 
does ; for if the exception is not as regular as the rule, the 
exception is not known as a rule or law at all. A clock is 
so constructed as to strike every hour but one, when it 
omits the stroke ; but it always omits the same hour. A 
calculating engine injects into a lengthened series of regu- 
larly succeeding numbers an insulated deviation ; but upon 

1 Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, p. 390. Vid. Preface to 
Second Edition. 



128 Unknown Law [Lect. 

the same adjustment ®f the machine the deviation is 
repeated. Upon first seeing the exceptional number, our 
impression would be that the machine was out of order, i.e. 
that this was an occurrence contrary to the law of the 
machine, nor should we be persuaded that it was not but 
by the repetition of the same exception in the same place. 
But miracles do not thus recur at the same physical junc- 
tures, and therefore do not come under an intermitting law 
of nature. 

This hypothesis, then, of the origin of miracles cannot 
be maintained as a truth of natural science, and can only 
be entertained as a speculation respecting the action of the 
Deity, the mode of operation attributable to the Universal 
Cause in the production of a miracle — that His action in 
the matter is not contemporary but original action. It can 
only be entertained as a speculation respecting the mode 
of the causation of a miracle. But all this is a distinct 
question for that of a miracle's referribleness to a law of 
nature, which law is concerned, not with causation, but 
with facts. As a speculation respecting the Divine action, 
and the mode of the causation of a miracle, this hypothesis 
would not, if adopted, make the slightest difference in the 
nature and character of a miracle. The date of its causa- 
tion would be put back, but the miracle itself would remain 
exactly what it was before upon the ordinary hypothesis : 
it would be as much an exception to the order of nature as 
before; an exception as much the result of the Divine 
intention and design as before; and to answer the same 
specific object which it answered before. Indeed, it is not 
the design of this hypothesis to make any difference in the 
miracle itself, or explain it away, but only, leaving it as 
miraculous as ever, to suggest a more philosophical rationale 
of its origin. Nor must such an hypothesis be confounded 
with attempts at physical explanations of miracles. 

I have throughout this inquiry taken the term ( law of 



VI] Unknozvn Law 129 

nature ' in the scientific sense, as referring to that order of 
nature of which we have experience ; but if by the laws of 
nature we understand the laws of the universe, we then 
arrive at a totally different conclusion upon the question 
of the contrariety of miracles to the laws of nature. In 
that case, " Nothing," as Spinoza says, " can take place in 
nature which is contrary to the laws of nature," and a sus- 
pension of the laws of nature is a contradiction in terms. 
A law cannot be suspended but by a force which is 
capable of suspending it ; and that force must act accord- 
ing to its own nature ; and the second force cannot sus- 
pend the first unless the law of its nature enables it to do 
so. The law of the Divine nature enables it to suspend 
all physical laws; but, the existence of a God assumed, 
the law of the Divine nature is as much a law of nature as 
the laws which it suspends. 

Is the suspension of physical and material laws by a 
Spiritual Being inconceivable ? We reply, that however 
inconceivable this kind of suspension of physical law is, 
it is a fact. Physical laws are suspended any time an 
animate being moves any part of its body; the laws of 
matter are suspended by the laws of life. If there is 
anything I am conscious of, it is that I am a spiritual 
being, that no part of my tangible body is myself, and that 
matter and I are distinct ideas. Yet I move matter, i.e. 
my body, and every time I do so I suspend the laws of 
matter. The arm that would otherwise hang down by its 
own weight, is lifted up by this spiritual being — myself. 
It is true my spirit is connected with the matter which it 
moves in a mode in which the Great Spirit who acts upon 
matter in a miracle is not; but to what purpose is this 
difference so long as any action of spirit upon matter 
is incomprehensible. The action of God's Spirit in the 
miracle of walking on the water is no more inconceivable 
than the action of my own spirit in holding up my own 



130 Unknown Law [Lect. 

hand. Antecedently one step on the ground and an ascent 
to heaven are alike incredible. But this appearance of 
incredibility is answered in one case literally ambulando. 
How can I place any reliance upon it in the other ? 

The constitution of nature, then, disproves the incredi- 
bility of the Divine suspension of physical law ; but more 
than this, it creates a presumption for it. For the laws 
of which we have experience are themselves in an ascend- 
ing scale. First come the laws which regulate unorganized 
matter; next the laws of vegetation; then, by an enormous 
leap, the laws of animal life, with its voluntary motion, 
desire, expectation, fear ; and above these, again, the laws 
of moral being which regulate a totally different order of 
creatures. Now suppose an intelligent being whose ex- 
perience was limited to one or more lower classes in this 
ascending scale of laws, he would be totally incapable of 
conceiving the action of the higher classes A thinking- 
piece of granite would be totally incapable of conceiving 
the action of chemical laws, which produce explosions, 
contacts, repulsions. A thinking mineral would be totally 
incapable of conceiving the laws of vegetable growth; a 
thinking vegetable could not form an idea of the laws of 
animal life ; a thinking animal could not form an idea of 
moral and intellectual truth. All this progressive succes- 
sion of laws is perfectly conceivable backward and an 
absolute mystery forward; and therefore when in the 
ascending series we arrive at man, we ask, Is there no 
higher sphere of law as much above him as he is above the 
lower natures in the scale ? The analogy would lead us 
to expect that there was, and supplies a presumption in 
favour of such a belief. 

And so we arrive again by another route at the old 
turning question ; for the question whether man is or is 
not the vertex of nature, is the question whether there is 
or is not a God. Does free agency stop at the human 



VI] Ufiknown Law 



stage, or is there a sphere of free-will above the human, 
in which, as in the human, not physical law but spirit 
moves matter ? And does that free-will penetrate the 
universal frame invisibly to us, an omnipresent agent ? If 
so, every miracle in Scripture is as natural an event in the 
universe as any chemical experiment in the physical 
world; if not, the seat of the great Presiding Will is empty, 
and nature has no Personal Head: man is her highest 
point ; he finishes her ascent ; though by this very supre- 
macy he falls, for under fate he is not free himself; all 
nature either ascends to God, or descends to law. Is there 
above the level of material causes a region of Providence ? 
If there is, nature there is moved by the Supreme Free 
Agent; and of such a realm a miracle is the natural 
production. (7.) 

Two rationales of miracles thus present themselves to 
our choice ; one more accommodating to the physical 
imagination and easy to fall in with, on a level with cus- 
tom, common conceptions, and ordinary history, and re- 
quiring no ascent of the mind to embrace, viz. the solution 
of miracles as the growth of fancy and legend ; the other 
requiring an ascent of the reason to embrace it, viz. the 
rationale of the supremacy of a Personal Will in nature. 
The one is the explanation to which we fall when we dare 
not trust our reason, but mistake its inconceivable truths 
for sublime but unsubstantial visions ; the other is that to 
which we rise when we dare trust our reason, and the 
evidences which it lays before us of the existence of a 
Personal Supreme Being. 



LECTURE VII 

MIRACLES REGARDED IN THEIR PRACTICAL 
RESULT 

Romans vi. 1 7 

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, hut ye have obeyed 
from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 

IN" judging of the truth of miracles the revelation oi 
which they were designed to be the proof necessarily 
comes into consideration ; and specially the practical result 
of that revelation. Without assuming the truth of revela- 
tion, we can consider this result. It is a reasonable in- 
quiry which arises in the mind upon first heariDg of an era 
of miracles — What is the good of them? what end and 
purpose have they answered ? If, then, some who had 
diseases were cured, that is something. But if there has 
been a permanent, enormous, and incalculable practical 
result — such a result that no other change in the world is 
to be compared with it — that is a very serious thing to take 
into account. We cannot avoid attaching weight to it, giv- 
ing it a place in the proof, and feeling impressed by the im- 
portance of such a circumstance in relation to the question. 
Without using — which we have no right to do — this result 
as direct evidence of the facts in dispute ; if the miraculous 
system has been a practical one, with immense practical 
effects upon mankind, it plainly ought to have the benefit 



Miracles in their Practical Result 1 33 

of this consideration in the estimate of its claims to be re- 
ceived as true. 

It is admitted, then, that Christianity has produced the 
greatest change that has been ever known in the world, 
with reference to moral standard and moral practice ; and 
when we inquire further, we find this change attributed by 
universal consent to the power of the great doctrines of 
Christianity upon the human heart ; which doctrines could 
not have been communicated without the evidence of 
miracles. 

And, first, a religion founded on miracles as compared 
with a religion founded upon the evidences of a God in 
nature, has a much superior motive power in the very fact 
of its supernatural origin. Undoubtedly the love of the 
supernatural may become a mere idle pleasure, and when 
it does it is condemned in Scripture. " If they hear not 
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded 
though one rose from the dead." But, on the other hand, 
this affection is in itself religious, and a powerful instru- 
ment of religion. A supernatural fact, a communication 
from the other world, is a potent influence ; it rouses, it 
solemnizes ; it is a strong motive to serious action. The 
other world stands before us in a more real aspect im- 
mediately. The notion of God as a Personal Being must 
be beyond all comparison greater in a religion founded 
upon miracles, than in one founded upon nature : because 
a miracle is itself a token of personal agency, of a Will and 
Spirit moving behind the veil of matter, in a way which 
the works of nature do not present. The tendency of a 
religion founded on nature, or Deism, is to establish as the 
world of God and man nature alone, the religious principle 
being adopted, but made to coincide with the sphere of 
this world. Such a religion is weak in influence. The 
voice of God must come out of another world to command 
with authority ; such a voice spake to Abraham, Isaac, and 



134 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

Jacob ; their religion had its root in the Invisible ; but a God 
in nature only does not strike awe. One single real miracle 
is another ground in religion ; if the walls of nature have 
been broken through but once, we are divided by a whole 
world from a mere physical basis of religion. Do we in 
imagination assign a certain extraordinary depth and 
seriousness to those who have seen supernatural facts ? 
The language of the Apostles embodies our idea and type 
of the effect of so unearthly an experience upon the 
recipients. 

But the remarkable change which Christianity made in 
the world was owing mainly, not to the miracles, but to the 
doctrines of which they were the proof. 

Undoubtedly the principal portion of the Gospel miracles 
were, besides being proofs of doctrine, also acts of mercy, 
sympathy, and beneficence; and attention has been pro- 
perly directed to the philanthropical character of them — 
that they were not mere acts of power but acts of love. 
Indeed, the philanthropical purpose was the primary and 
principal purpose of each of these miracles as a single act, 
and with reference to the occasion on which it was wrought 1 : 
while the evidential object belongs to them only as a body 
and a whole. The evidential object of miracles, indeed, 
was naturally achieved by the medium of the philanthropical 
object ; the general purpose was fulfilled by the very same 
acts which also served the special, particular, and occa- 
sional purposes. The one object adapted itself to the times 
and opportunities of the other, followed, waited upon, and 
linked itself on to them ; the proof of a dispensation was 
communicated in the form of miracles for the temporary 
relief and benefit of individuals. The evidential object of 
miracles was not executed in a forced and unnatural way, 
by set feats of thaumaturgy, and exhibitions of miraculous 
power as such, challenging the astonishment of beholders : 
it was accomplished in correspondence with the whole scale 



vn] 



in their Practical Result 135 



of the Divine character ; the acts of power were performed 
for those purposes which love pointed out, were elicited 
naturally by the several occasions, and fitted on to the 
course of events, the incidents of the hour, and the cases of 
infirmity which came in the way. Still, however naturally 
and in whatever connexion with other objects the evidential 
function of miracles was introduced, that function was not 
the less the principal object of miracles ; that on which they 
depended for any advantage ensuing from them extending 
beyond the original and local occasions, any permanent 
advantage to the world at large, any result affecting the 
interests of mankind. Will it be said that these philan- 
thropical miraculous acts were a revelation of the character 
of God to man as a God of mercy and love ? They could 
not be that, however, except by the medium of the eviden- 
tial function. For they could only be a revelation in act 
of the Divine character, on the supposition that the Person 
who wrought them was " God manifested in the flesh " — a 
truth for which the doctrine of the Incarnation, which is 
the result of evidence, is assumed. 

That the Gospel miracles, then, founded a system of 
doctrine which was lasting, and did not pass away like a 
creature of the day, is justly noticed by writers on evidence 
as an important note in favour of them ; but what I remark 
now is not the permanent doctrine which was the effect of 
the miracles, but the great permanent change which was 
the effect of the doctrine ; that this doctrine did not leave 
mankind as it found them, but was a fresh starting-point 
(a<£o/)pj) of moral practice, whence we date, not cer- 
tainly the complete regeneration of the world, but such an 
alteration in it as divides the world after the Christian era 
from the world before it. 

The Epistle to the Eomans is in substance a declaration 
of this power and effect of Christian doctrine, a prophecy, 
if we may call it so, of the actual result which has followed 



136 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

it. This Epistle is distinguished as the great doctrinal 
Epistle, and truly ; but this is not an adequate description 
of it ; because the writer sets forth there Christian doctrine, 
not in itself as truth merely, but as that great new motive 
to action, which was the prominent and conspicuous want 
and need of mankind. The Epistle to the Eomans is one 
long assertion of this power of doctrine as a motive to 
action. First comes the statement, that the world up to 
that moment had been, morally speaking, a failure, and 
had utterly disappointed the design for which it was made; 
not because man was without the knowledge of his duty, 
but because, the knowledge existing, there was between 
knowledge and action a total chasm, which nothing yet had 
been able to fill up. The Apostle looks upon that as yet 
unbridged gulf, this incredible inability of man to do what 
was right, with profound wonder ; yet such was the fact. 
The sublime moral maxims of Oriental nations strike us 
now ; it is impossible to deny the light, the height of pure 
knowledge which they shew ; but can the transcendent 
code of duty get itself acted on ? Is it looked upon even 
in that point of view ? Has it even a practical intention 
that deserves to be called so ? No ; it is a beautiful erec- 
tion of moral sentiment, but there it ends. Man possesses 
a moral nature, and, if he has intellect enough, he can put 
his moral ideas into words, just as he can put metaphysical 
ideas ; nor is his doing so any test of his moral condition. 
Take any careless person of corrupt habits out of the thick 
of his ordinary life, and ask him to state in words what is 
his moral creed ? Has he any doubt about it ? None : he 
immediately puts down a list of the most sublime moral 
truths and principles. But as regards their being a law to 
himself, he feels that he has more to do with that than with 
anything else which is impossible. Between them and 
action there exists in his eyes an impassable interval ; and 
so far as relates to himself, as soon as ever these truths are 



VII] in their Practical Result 1 3 7 

formally and properly enunciated, their whole design and 
purpose is fulfilled. 

Such was the contrast which met St. Paul in the condi- 
tion of the whole world Jew and Gentile — knowledge with- 
out action. What was there to fill up this void, and effect 
a junction between these two ? Now when a man feels 
something to be wholly out of his reach, and that he has 
nothing to do with it, because he cannot do it ; the first 
notion of a remedy for this sense of utter impotence is an 
appeal to his will — Believe that you can do it, and you can 
do it. But how can a man believe simply because he is 
told to do so ? Believe upon no foundation ? On the 
other hand, if you can tell him anything new about him- 
self, any actual fresh source of strength from which he has 
not drawn but now may draw, this is a ground for a new 
belief about himself and what he can do. And this ground 
for a new belief about himself is what St. Paul proceeds to 
lay before impotent and despairing man, whose cry was, 
"To will is present with me, but how to perform that 
which is good I fiud not. For the good which I would I 
do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " Nothing 
but some wholly new agency, some effective and powerful 
motive not yet known to the world, could set this sluggish 
nature in action ; but that motive St. Paul could supply. 

The force, then, which Christianity applied to human 
nature, according to St. Paul, and by which it was to pro- 
duce this change in the moral state of man, was a new doc- 
trine. This new impulse and inspiration to goodness, able 
to lift him above the power of sin, the love of the world, 
and the lusts of the flesh, was contained in the great truth 
of the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God. God was 
by this transcendent act of mediation reconciled to man, 
pardoned him, and sent him forth anew on his course, with 
the gift of the Holy Spirit in his heart. This new founcla- 



-/) 



138 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

tion, then, upon which human life is raised is an actual 
event which has taken place in the invisible world ; but 
inasmuch as God communicates the advantage of that 
event to man by the medium of man's own knowledge of 
and belief in it, this event necessarily becomes a doctrine ; 
and that doctrine is the new impulse to human nature. 
" The righteousness of God is manifested unto all and upon 
all them that believe" The knowledge of and faith in the 
new supernatural relation in which he stands to God, is 
henceforth the moral strength of man, that which enables 
him to obey the Divine law. That new relation does not 
produce its effect without his own convictions, but knowing 
it and believing it, he experiences a movement from it so 
forcible, so elevating, and so kindling, that he is raised 
above himself by it. " Sin has not dominion over him." 
" The law of the Spirit of life hath made him free from the 
law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in 
that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own 
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned 
sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law might 
be fulfilled in us." "He that raised up Christ from the 
dead shall quicken our mortal bodies, by His Spirit that 
dwelleth in us." " He that spared not His own Son, but 
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him 
also freely give us all things ? " 1 He appeals to men's be- 
lief in the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel, as that 
which is henceforth to constitute the motive power to urge 
them to and fix them in moral practice. The prefaces, 
" How shall we," " Know ye not," " Eeckon yourselves," 
"Ye are debtors to," " Ye are servants to," express the 
sense of an impossibility of acting against such a belief if 
it is genuine. 

If we examine the mode in which the doctrine of the 
Incarnation and Death of the Son of God is adapted to act 

1 Rom. viii. 2, 3, 11, 32. 



VII] in their Practical Result 139 

upon moral conduct, first comes the influence and the 
motive contained in the character of the Divine Being, of 
which this is a new and striking revelation. The Atone- 
ment stamps upon the mind with a power, w T ith which no 
other fact could, the righteousness of God. To trifle with 
a Being who has demanded this Sacrifice is madness ; and 
hence arises awe : but from the acceptance of the Atone- 
ment arises the love of God. A strict master is a stimulus 
to service if he is just ; servants wish to please him : his 
pardon, again, is the greater stimulus, on account of his 
very strictness, because it is the greater prize. Thus the 
belief in the Atonement becomes that inspiring motive to 
action which St. Paul represents it as being. Man appears 
in his Epistles as a pardoned being, — pardoned by that 
very God of whom he thus stands in awe, — and as a par- 
doned being a rejoicing being; rejoicing, not because he 
has nothing to do, but because having much to do, he feels 
himself possessed of a high spirit, and strength enough to 
do it. The sense of pardon is the inspiriting thing. " For 
if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the 
death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be 
saved by His life." x From that event man dates his adop- 
tion, his glorious liberty, the law of the Spirit of life, the 
witness of that Spirit in his own heart, the expectation of 
that glory which shall be revealed in him, and the gift of 
eternal life. 

We thus observe it as a remarkable characteristic of 
Scripture, and especially of St. Paul's language, that it 
takes what may be called the high view of human nature ; 
i.e., of what human nature is capable of when the proper 
motive and impulse is applied to it. In this sense St. 
Paul, if I may use the expression, believes in human nature ; 
he thinks it capable of rising to great heights even in this 
life, he sees that in man which really can triumph over the 

1 Rom. r. 10. 



140 Miracles regarded [Lect, 

world, the flesh, and the devil; which can struggle, and 
which can conquer in the struggle. His is what may be 
called the enthusiastic view of human nature, though tem- 
pered by the wisdom of inspiration. He sees in Christian 
doctrine that strong force which is to break down the vis 
inertice of man, to kindle into life the dormant elements of 
goodness in him, to set human nature going, and to touch 
the spring of man's heart. Hence it is that the writer is 
borne along at times breathless with vehemence and with 
rapture, as the visions of hope rise up before him, and man 
is seen in the prospect over all the face of the earth, as- 
cending in mind to heaven. Hence it is that the flood of 
thought becoming too rapid for the medium which conveys 
it, struggles with and interrupts itself; though at the same 
time he is equally arrested by the mystery of limitation 
which adheres to Divine grace, and sees the true Church 
of God as separate from the world. 

How marked the contrast, when from this high estimate 
of, this. ardent faith in, the capabilities of human nature 
which a doctrinal foundation imparts, we turn to the idea 
of man presented to us in a religion of pure Deism. The 
religion of Mahomet is not a doctrinal religion ; it is with- 
out an Incarnation, without an Atonement ; no sacrifice for 
sin reveals the awful justice of God, no pardon upon a 
sacrifice His awful mercy ; in the high court of heaven the 
Deity sits enthroned in the majesty of omnipotence and 
omniscience, but without the great symbol of His Infinite 
Eighteousness by His side — the Lamb that was slain. And 
now observe the effect of this doctrinal void upon the idea 
of God and the idea of man in that religion. If one had 
to express in a short compass the character of its remarkable 
founder as a teacher, it would be that that great man had 
no faith in human nature. There were two things which 
he thought man could do and would do for the glory of 
God — transact religious forms, and fight ; and upon those 



\ r II] in their Practical Result 14; 

two points he was severe ; but within the sphere of com- 
mon practical life, where man's great trial lies, his code 
exhibits the disdainful laxity of a legislator, who accom- 
modates his rub to the recipient, and shews his estimate 
of the recipient by the accommodation which he adopts. 
Did we search history for a contrast, we could hardly dis- 
cover a deeper one than that between St. Paul's overflow- 
ing standard of the capabilities of human nature and the 
oracular cynicism of the great false Prophet. The writer 
of the Koran does indeed, if any discerner of hearts ever 
did, take the measure of mankind ; and his measure is the 
Same that Satire has taken, only expressed with the majes- 
tic brevity of one who had once lived in the realm of 
Silence. " Man is weak," says Mahomet. And upon that 
maxim he legislates. " God is minded to make his reli- 
gion light unto you, for man was created weak" — " God 
would make his religion an ease unto you" — a suitable 
foundation of the code which followed, and fit parent of 
that numerous offspring of accommodations, neutralizing 
qualifications, and thinly-disguised loopholes to the fraud 
and rapacity of the Oriental, which appear in the Koran, 
and shew, where they do appear, the author's deep ac- 
quaintance with the besetting sins of his devoted followers. 
The keenness of Mahomet's insight into human nature ; a 
wide knowledge of its temptations, persuasives, influences 
under which it acts ; a vast immense capacity of forbear- 
ance for it, half grave half genial, half sympathy half scorn, 
issue in a somewhat Horatian model, the character of the 
man of experience who despairs of any change in man, and 
lays down the maxim that we must take him as we find 
him. It was indeed his supremacy in both faculties, the 
largeness of the passive meditative nature, 1 and the splen- 

1 Shakespeare represents the largeness of the passive nature in Hamlet, 
but a disproportionate largeness which issues in feebleness, because he is 
always thi .iking of the whole of tilings. "A mind may easily be too large 



14 2 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

dour of action, that constituted the secret of his success. 
The breadth and flexibility of mind that could negotiate 
with every motive of interest, passion, and pride in man is 
surprising ; there is boundless sagacity ; what is wanting is 
hope, a belief in the capabilities of human nature. There 
is no upward flight in the teacher's idea of man. Instead 
of which, the notion of the power of earth, and the impos- 
sibility of resisting it, depresses his whole aim, and the 
shadow of the tomb falls upon the work of the great false 
Prophet, (i.) 

The idea of God is akin to the idea of man. " He knows 
us," says Mahomet. God's knowledge, the vast experience, 
so to speak, of the Divine Being, His infinite acquaintance 
with man's frailties and temptations, is appealed to as the 
ground of confidence. " He is the Wise, the Knowing 
One," " He is the Knowing, the Wise," " He is easy to be 
reconciled." Thus is raised a notion of the Supreme Being 
which is rather an extension of the character of the large- 
minded and sagacious man of the world, than an extension 
of man's virtue and holiness. He forgives because He 
knows too much to be rigid, because sin universal ceases 
to be sin, and must be given way to. Take a man who 
has had large opportunity of studying mankind, and has 
come into contact with every form of human weakness and 
corruption; such a man is indulgent as a simple conse- 
quence of his knowledge, because nothing surprises him. 
So the God of Mahomet forgives by reason of His vast 
knowledge. The absence of the doctrine of the Atonement 
makes itself felt in the character of that Being who forgives 
without a Sacrifice for sin ; shewing that without that doc- 

for effectiveness, and energy suffer from an expansion of the field of view. 
The mind of Hamlet lies all abroad like the sea— an universal reflector — 
but wanting the self-moving principle. Musing, reflection, and irony upon 
all the world supersede action, and a task evaporates in philosophy. " — 
Christian Remembrancer, No. 63, p. 1 78. 



VII] in their Practical Resu It 143 

trine there cannot even be high Deism. So knit together 
is the whole fabric of truth ; without a sacrifice, a pardon- 
ing God becomes an easy God : and an easy God makes a 
low human nature. No longer awful in His justice, the 
Wise, " the Knowing One," degrades His own act of for- 
giveness by converting it into connivance ; and man takes 
full advantage of so tolerant and convenient a master. 
" Man is weak," and " God knows him," — these two maxims 
taken together constitute an ample charter of freedom for 
human conduct. " God knows us," says man ; He knows 
that we are not adapted to a very rigid rule, He does not 
look upon us in that light, He does not expect any great 
things from us ; not an inflexible justice, not a searching 
self-denial, not a punctilious love of our neighbour ; He is 
considerate, He is wise, He knows what we can do, and 
what we cannot do ; He does not condemn us, He makes 
allowance for us, " He knows us." So true is the saying 
of Pascal that " without the knowledge of Jesus Christ we 
see nothing but confusion in the nature of God and in our 
own nature." 1 

The force which Christianity has applied to the world, 
and by which it has produced that change in the world 
which it has, is, in a word, the doctrine of grace. There 
has been a new power actually working in the system, and 
that power has worked by other means besides doctrine : 
but still it is the law of God's dealings with us to apply 
His power to us by means of our faith and belief in that 
power ; i.e. by doctrine. Faith in his own position, the be- 
lief at the bottom of every Christian's heart that he stands 
in a different relation to God from a heathen, and has a 
supernatural source of strength — this it is which has made 
him act, has been the rousing and elevating motive to the 
Christian body, and raised its moral practice. 

If we go into particulars, the force of the great Example 

1 Pensees, vol. ii. p. 317. 



1 44 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

of the Incarnation, which we include in the effect of the 
doctrine of the Incarnation, has founded the great order of 
Christian, as distinguished from heathen virtues. It is 
evident what power the great act of forgiveness in the 
Atonement has had in stamping the great law of forgive- 
ness upon human hearts ; what power the Incarnation, as a 
great act of humiliation, has had in creating another esti- 
mate of human rank and glory ; what effect again the same 
great doctrine has had in producing that interest in the 
poor and whole difference of relations to them which has 
characterized Christian society. For whence has that idea 
of the poor and their claims come, but from the idea of 
man's brotherhood to man which the Incarnation has 
founded, and the recommendation of a low estate contained 
in the Humiliation of the Incarnation. There has been 
deep in men's minds the notion that they were uniting 
themselves to that Act, and attaching to themselves the 
benefit of it, by copying it ; by transferring it to Christian 
life, and reproducing it, so to speak, in an act of their own, 
— the descent from their own position to that of a lower 
fellow-creature. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, again, 
has enlightened man with respect to his body, and the re- 
spect due to it as the temple of that Divine Spirit ; and 
has thus produced that different estimate of sins of the 
body which so distinguishes the Christian from the heathen 
world. The doctrine of a future life, as attested by the 
miracle of the Eesurrection, was practically a new doctrine 
in the world : it has inspired a belief and a conviction of a 
world to come, altogether distinct from any notion enter- 
tained by the heathen ; and it has acted as the most power- 
ful motive to moral practice. 

It must be observed that the great public causes, which 
have produced the moral movements of communities and 
of society in the modern world, have leaned upon doctrine ; 
and relied upon that power for the propagating energy 



VII] in their Practical Result 145 

necessary for them. Hence has arisen the inoculation of 
hearts, the excitement of genuine interest. The cause of 
the poorer classes, as just stated, has had a doctrinal foun- 
dation. The cause of the slave has had the same. The 
doctrine of the Incarnation has, through the idea of man's 
brotherhood to man, also founded the rights of man. Chris- 
tianity tolerated slavery in the days of the Apostles, and it 
does so now, because it tolerates all conditions of life which 
admit of Christian devotion and practice being conducted 
in them. But Christianity has always opposed this abuse : 
the Church was the great manumitter and improver of the 
condition of the serf in the middle ages ; and in the present 
age religious feeling has been at the bottom of the great 
movement against slavery. For was that being to be 
bought and sold whose nature Christ assumed, and for 
whom Christ died ? Thus the public effort which ended 
in relieving this country from the stigma of the capture 
and ownership of slaves, received its impulse from doc- 
trine ; and the great leader of it was himself the leader of 
a doctrinal revival. Public education has been partly a 
movement of charity and benevolence to man, and partly a 
movement for the advance of science. As a movement of 
charity to impart knowledge to and elevate the minds of 
the poor, it has been indebted principally and primarily to 
a religious motive ; for George III. caught the animus of 
society and represented it correctly in his well-known pro- 
phecy of the day " when every man in England would be 
able to read his Bible." And whence has the relief of 
sickness obtained its dignity and loftiness as a duty under 
Christianity ? Whence but from the same great doctrine 
which makes mankind one body, as members of " Him who 
hlleth all in all ? " Hence every individual member par- 
takes of the dignity of the whole ; and the act of minister- 
ing to him becomes a noble service, paid to the whole body, 
and to its Head. " I was sick and ye visited Me, I was in 

K 



146 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

prison and ye came unto Me." The idea of the dignity of 
man as such, the equality of man with man in the sight of 
God, the nobility of ministry and service to him, for the 
relief of his wants and diseases, did not exist in the world 
before the Gospel ; the heathens had no value for man as 
such, but only for man under certain flattering circum- 
stances, as developed by knowledge or greatness. Eeduced 
to his own nature, he was nothing in their eyes : the slave 
was another being from his master. The light of truth 
first broke through this blindness and stupor in the doc- 
trine of the Incarnation, and that doctrine is the historical 
date of the modern idea of man. To say that the inspira- 
tion of the missionary cause has been the belief in Chris- 
tian doctrine is almost superfluous ; because we can hardly 
in imagination conceive missionary enterprise without it. 
Zeal in this cause is essentially the child of faith; and 
without the conviction in the Church of a supernatural 
truth to communicate, and a supernatural dispensation to 
spread, Christianity must give up the very pretension of 
propagating itself in the world. The great public causes 
which are part of modern history and distinguish modern 
society from ancient, thus witness to the power of doc- 
trine ; but public causes are but one channel in which 
Christian action has flowed ; they do but exhibit in aggre- 
gate forms that Christian disposition and practice which 
goes on principally in private. 

Christianity simply regarded as a code of morals will not 
account for this moral change in the world ; for men do not 
do right things because they are told to do them. Mere 
moral instruction does not effect its purpose unless it is 
seconded by some powerful force and motive besides the 
lesson itself. Xor is this change in the world accounted 
for by the natural law of example, by saying that a body 
of men of high moral character and aims, under a remark- 
able leader, set up a high model, which model spread oil- 



VII] in their Practical Result 147 

ginally and transmitted itself age after age by its own 
power and influence as a model and pattern. The force of 
example has a natural tendency to wear out. We see this 
in institutions and in states. Particular societies have in 
different ages been set going by earnest men, who infused 
at first their own spirit and put men of their own type 
into them; but the force of example became gradually 
weaker in the process of transmission; at every stage of 
the succession something of it was lost, till at last the body 
wholly degenerated. So a great example set by founders 
and their associates has imparted a mould and character to 
political communities, which has lasted some time; but 
this mould has altered as the original influence by little 
and little died away; and the state has become corrupt. 
Thus the pattern of public spirit and devotion to the public 
good which was originally stamped upon Sparta, Eome, and 
Venice, gradually lost its hold, and those states degenerated. 
The force of example, then, is not self-sustaining; and 
therefore when a moral change in society is made for a 
perpetuity, and is a permanent characteristic, lasting 
through and surviving all other changes and transitions, 
this effect must be owing to some other principle than that 
of example, some permanent force from another root, by 
which example itself is kept up. I may add that the 
source of Christian practice in Christian truth does not 
agree with any settled principle of decay in Christian prac- 
tice, and with extreme statements of the inferiority of 
modern Christians to ancient. For though doubtless, with 
the same truth to move the human heart, its energies may 
be brought out in one age more than in another ; still the 
idea of a regular tendency of Christian practice to degene- 
rate with time, combines with the explanation of example 
as its cause, rather than with the operation of a constant 
cause in revealed truth. 

What I remark, then, is that the prophecy in the Epistle 



148 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

to the Eomans has been fulfilled, and that doctrine has 
been historically at the bottom of a great change of moral 
practice in mankind. By a prophecy I mean that St. Paul 
assigns a certain property and effect to doctrine, viz. that 
of eliciting the good element in man, setting man's moral 
nature in action ; and that this property has been realized. 
The world, he says, has been hitherto a failure, everything 
has gone wrong, because man has not been able to act ; he 
could not do the thing that he would ; he has laboured 
under an insurmountable weakness, and defect of some 
motive power adequate to tell upon him. But this is what 
is to change man ; this is what is to touch the seat of action 
in his heart, the truth which is now revealed from heaven 
— the doctrine of the Incarnation and Death of Christ. 
This doctrine will rouse and awaken human nature, and 
give it what it now wants — the great practical impulse. 
This account, I say, of the power of doctrine in St. Paul 
has been fulfilled by the fact. The history of man coin- 
cides with this assertion of St. Paul's of the property of 
doctrine. Not that the result has been by any means a 
complete one, or that St. Paul expected it to be ; far other- 
wise. His doctrine of election shews that; that doctrine 
evidently represents the body of really good and holy men 
in the world, the spiritual Church, as always insulated in 
the world, always a small number in comparison with the 
great mass of mankind ; and a dark shadow rests upon one 
portion of the field of prophecy, contrasting remarkably 
with the light and glory of the other. But the issue of the 
Gospel, though not a complete result, has still been a great 
result ; such a result as divides the world after the Chris- 
tian era morally from the world before it. A stimulus has 
been given to human nature, which has extracted an 
amount of action from it which no Greek or Roman could 
have believed possible, but which, had it been placed in 



VII] in their Practical Result 149 

idea before him, lie would have set aside as the dream of 
an enthusiast. 

Undoubtedly, the doctrines of false religions have ex- 
tracted remarkable action out of human nature ; especially 
the doctrines of Oriental religions. The Hindoo doctrine 
of Absorption, e.g. has produced a great deal of extraordi- 
nary action. But what sort of action is it ? Is it action 
upon the scale of our whole moral nature, worthy of that 
nature, or the fulfilment of the law as the Scripture calls 
it ? No, it is such wild, eccentric, one-sided energy of the 
erratic will as is more allied to phrenzy than morals. The 
fruits of the doctrine of Absorption are gigantic feats of 
self-torture and self-stupefaction, ending in themselves, and 
unconnected with charity to man: a fruit worthy of its 
source. For the doctrine of Absorption is itself a false- 
hood : no man can wish for the loss of his own personality, 
i.e. his own annihilation : no man ever did wish for it, what- 
ever length of torture he may have undergone to obtain it. 
The conception is a counterfeit ; it wants truth, and " the 
tree is known by its fruits." Do men gather grapes of 
thorns, or figs of thistles ? So neither can moral practice 
issue out of the doctrine of Absorption ; but a fiction pro- 
duces the wild and poor fruit of extravagance. (2.) 

In attributing this effect to Christian doctrine, we must 
at the same time remember that the old Law foreshadowed 
that doctrine. The religion of the Jew was not Deism. 
In the first place it was founded on miracles, and on that 
higher revelation of the personality of the Deity which 
miracles are. In the next place it was accompanied by the 
institution of sacrifice, which was a peculiar revelation of 
the righteous character of God, as a rite; and an intimation 
of the real Atonement as a type. From these sources was 
derived the deep doctrine of repentance and forgiveness, 
which penetrates the Psalms and Prophecy ; the sense of 

• 



1 50 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

the necessity of an act of pardon on God's part, in order to 
allay the trouble in man's heart, and reinstate him in peace 
of mind ; the intimate communion with God upon this 
sense of the necessity of His favour and acceptance ; the 
language of tender complaint and remonstrance with Him 
founded upon what we may call the devotional fiction of 
His hardness and inflexibility — the affectionate irony of 
prayer. In this whole relation to God lay the motive 
power of the old Law, the stimulus to goodness in it ; to 
the force of which the Jew was indebted for raising him 
above the pagan in morals ; and which actually issued in 
producing a body or class of holy men in every generation 
of the people. Whereas paganism had high individual ex- 
amples, but not a class. But this relation under the old 
Law was an anticipation of Christian light. The Law as 
such could not " give life," nor " could righteousness come 
by the Law," as a law ; but so far as the old law contained 
the germ of Gospel truth, so far it gave life ; so far it sup- 
plied an effective motive to rouse the heart of man to ex- 
ertion. (3.) 

The relation of religion to morals has indeed been exem- 
plified most conspicuously under Christianity. Morality 
may in the abstract exist without religion, and is not iden- 
tical with it ; but religion has been the practical producer 
of it ; the practical motive to morals in the world. Our 
moral nature is not its own moving principle ; it is so at 
least very inadequately ; and so we find that in point of 
fact doctrine has been the impulse which has set it in 
action. It is not in human nature to set about its work 
wholly in the dark ; it wants a vision of the invisible world, 
a revelation of God and of its own prospects and destiny, 
to set it to work. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ, 
and of life eternal in the same Jesus Christ, is this vision 
or supernatural truth which has produced action. The 
strong need of the sense of favour with God, which the 



VI I] in their Practical Result 151 

Gospel manifestation of Him has created ; the overpower- 
ing disclosure of man's destiny, that lie was made for a 
state of endless glory and happiness, has forced men, in 
spite of themselves, to do good acts. And therefore doc- 
trine has been a part of human progress, a fresh ground- 
work, a higher level gained ; analogous in morals to civili- 
zation in social and political life. And to give up doctrine 
would be a retrograde movement for the human race, the 
surrender of ground made, a relapse from a later to an 
earlier stage of humanity ; the abandonment of a superior 
motive power which commands the spring of action in the 
human heart, for an inferior one which did not touch it. 1 

But still it will be asked — Would not all this result of 
Christianity have been just the same without the peculiar 
doctrines ? are not these merely the accidental appendages 
of a spirit which rose up in man, which has been the ener- 
gizing power throughout ? But though it is always open 
to men, when great results have taken place in connexion 
with certain apparent causes, to say that they would have 
taken place all the same without those causes, this cannot 
in the nature of the case be more than a conjecture. We 
have an obvious and matter-of fact coincidence of a higher 
state of mankind with doctrine ; which coincidence is of 
itself a strong argument. And we have, moreover, man's 
own witness to doctrine, as being the cause which has pro- 
duced this effect. If we are to take men's own account of 
their own action, and their own power of action, this has 
been the impulse to them : the call which has awakened 
them to moral life has been a doctrinal one; what has 

1 Scott in his "Force of Truth" mentions, what is remarkable, that 
while he held Socinian principles himself, he still purposely discarded 
them as his basis of preaching, because he saw they were not enough for 
moral purposes, i.e. for making him a successful preacher of morality, 
which he was very desirous of being. " I concealed them in a great mea- 
sure both for my credit's sake and from a sort of desire I entertained of 
successfully inculcating the moral duties upon those to whom I preached." 



152 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

enabled them to maintain this action has been the support 
of certain truths, in the absence of which they would not 
have been able to do what they did. In this state of the 
case, to say that all this change would have gone on with- 
out doctrine, is unsatisfactory, and suppositional only. 
Let us conceive for a moment Christian doctrine obliter- 
ated, and mankind starting afresh without it, with only the 
belief in a Benevolent Deity, and a high moral code. With 
the fact before us of what has been the working power of 
doctrine upon man's heart, and what has been the weak- 
ness of our moral nature without doctrine, could we com- 
mit mankind to a moral Deism without trembling for the 
result ? Could we deprive human nature of this powerful 
aid and inspiring motive, and expect it to act as if it had 
it ? Could we look forward without dismay to the loss of 
this practical force which has been acting upon human 
nature for eighteen centuries ? Would any one in his 
heart expect that Christianity deprived of its revealed 
truths would retain its old strength, would produce equal 
fruits, the same self-sacrificing spirit, zeal, warmth, earnest- 
ness ? that it would give the same power of living above 
the world ? that its effects on the heart, its spiritualizing 
influence, would be the same without its doctrines ? No ! 
When men speculate they want to get rid of doctrine ; but 
when they want practical results to be produced, then they 
fall back upon doctrine, as that alone which can produce 
them, which can awaken man from his lethargy, and sup- 
ply a constraining motive to him. I do not mean to say 
that many have not taken an active part in the great ob- 
jects and movements of Christian society who have not 
accepted Christian doctrine ; but such men have acted upon 
an idea obtained from revelation, although they have ceased 
to believe the revelation from which it came. Example is 
not the full account of the origin of Christian practice, but 
still that practice existing, its example tells, and inoculates 



VII] in their Practical Result 153 

many who reject the creed. A moral standard is imbibed 
with the atmosphere of life. Such men are the production 
of Christian doctrine, however they may disclaim it : — so 
far at least as concerns this practical zeal. 

What is offered as a substitute for the doctrine of the 
Incarnation, to set man's moral nature in action, is the en- 
thusiastic philosophical sentiment of the divinity of human 
nature. But though I would not say that this, like other 
ideas which have an element of truth in them, has not 
given a high impulse to some minds ; that it has been a 
forcible engine for impelling mankind to the practice of 
duty would be plainly overrating its results. And there is 
a reason for its weakness and want of power, viz, that the 
idea does not stand the test of observation. For let us 
suppose a sagacious man of great experience and know- 
ledge of the world, who had had opportunity of observing 
human nature upon a large scale — its expressions and its 
disguises, the corruption of men's -motives, and all those 
well-known traits and characteristics of mankind which 
acute men have embodied in various sayings — let us sup- 
pose such a person having laid before him for his accept- 
ance the above idea of the divinity of human nature. He 
would treat it with derision and ridicule ; representing that 
though men of the profoundest sagacity have in all ages 
believed in mysteries, it is another thing to ask them to 
believe that facts themselves are different from what they 
are seen to be. But let us suppose again, the same pene- 
trating observer not wholly satisfied with the low estimate 
of man as the full account of him, but catching also obscure 
signs of a different element in the being, working its way 
under great disadvantages, and not to be left out of the cal- 
culation, though he cannot tell what it may turn out to be, 
and what it may shadow and prognosticate in the destiny 
of this creature. Were then, at this stage, the idea of a 
Divine scheme for the elevation of this creature to a parti- 



154 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

cipation of the Divine nature to be offered to him, what- 
ever astonishment the thought might excite, conscious that 
he had no solution of his own of the enigma before him, he 
would not wholly reject it; but one condition he would 
think indispensable — he would not listen to the notion of 
this creature's exaltation except through the passage of 
some deep confession first, by which he would condemn 
himself utterly, and in condemning cast off his old vileness. 
Without this tribute, this sacrifice to truth, such an idea 
would appear a mockery. 

Such a distinction as this divides one doctrine of ex- 
alted humanity from another. A deification of humanity 
upon its own grounds, an exaltation which is all height 
and no depth, wants power because it wants truth. It is 
not founded upon the facts of human nature, and therefore 
issues in vain and vapid aspiration, which injures the 
solidity of man's character. That serious doctrine of man's 
greatness, which lays hold on man's moral nature, and 
brings it out, is one which lays its foundation first in his 
guilt and misery ; his exaltation is remedial, a restoration 
. from a fall. Thus the school of experience accepts man's 
vileness in the Gospel portrait, the sanguine school his 
loftiness ; the one depresses man, the other inflates him ; 
the Gospel doctrine of the Incarnation and its effects alone 
unites the sagacious view of human nature with the enthu- 
siastic. It is the only doctrine of man's exaltation which 
the observer of mankind can accept; while also it is only 
as a mystery transacted in the highest heaven that man's 
exaltation has ever been cared for by himself, ever com- 
manded his serious energies. (4.) 

But if, as the source and inspiration of practice, doctrine 
has been the foundation of a new state of the world, and 
of that change which distinguishes the world under Chris- 
tianity from the world before it ; miracles, as the proof of 
that doctrine, stand before us in a very remarkable and 



VII] in their Practical Result 155 

peculiar light. Far from being mere idle feats of power to 
gratify the love of the marvellous; far even from being 
mere particular and occasional rescues from the operation 
of general laws ; they come before us as means for accom- 
plishing the largest and most important practical object 
that has ever been accomplished in the history of mankind. 
They lie at the bottom of the difference of the modern from 
the ancient world ; so far, i.e. as that difference is moral. 
We see as a fact a change in the moral condition of man- 
kind, which marks ancient and modern society as two 
different states of mankind. What has produced this 
change, and elicited this new power of action ? Doctrine. 
And what was the proof of that doctrine, or essential to 
the proof of it? Miracles. The greatness of the result 
thus throws light upon the propriety of the means ; and 
shews the fitting object which was presented for the intro- 
duction of such means; the fitting occasion which had 
arisen for the use of them ; for indeed no more weighty, 
grand, or solemn occasion can be conceived, than the foun- 
dation of such a new order of things in the world. Extra- 
ordinary action of Divine power for such an end has the 
benefit of a justifying object of incalculable weight; which 
though not of itself indeed proof of the fact, comes with 
striking force upon the mind in connexion with the proper 
proof. It is reasonable, it is inevitable that we should be 
impressed by such a result; for it shews that the miracu- 
lous system has been a practical one ; that it has been a 
step in the ladder of man's ascent, the means of introduc- 
ing those powerful truths which have set his moral nature 
in action. 

Nor, must it be observed, can professed subsequent 
miracles for the conversion of particular populations, after 
the original miraculous proof and propagatiom of the 
Gospel, avail themselves of the argument which applies to 
those original miracles themselves. Because the argument 



156 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

for these miracles, which is thus extracted from the great 
result of them, is based upon the necessity of those miracles 
for this result. But though the original miracles are 
necessary for the proof of doctrine, subsequent miracles 
cannot plead the same necessity ; because when that doc- 
trine has been once attested, those original credentials, 
transmitted by the natural channels of evidence, are the 
permanent and perpetual proof of that doctrine, not want- 
ing reinforcements from additional and posterior miracles ; 
which are therefore without the particular recommendation 
to our belief, of being necessary for the great result before 
us. The Anglo-Saxon nation was doubtless as important a 
nation to convert as the Jewish or Greek ; but the miracles 
of our Lord and His Apostles were necessary to convert 
the Jews and the Greeks; St. Augustine's reputed miracles 
were not necessary to convert the Anglo-Saxons. First 
miracles in proof of a new dispensation, and miracles in a 
subsequent age for the spread of it, stand upon different 
grounds in this respect ; the latter are without that par- 
ticular note of truth which consists in a necessary connexion 
with great permanent ends. First credentials cannot be 
dispensed with, second ones can be. It may be said that 
second ones are useful for facilitating and expediting con- 
version; but we are no judges of the Divine intentions 
with reference to the speed or gradualness of the conver- 
sion of mankind to the Gospel; which considerations 
therefore stand on a different ground from the fundamental 
needs of a dispensation. The saying of our Lord, " Blessed 
are they that have not seen and yet have believed," evi- 
dently contemplates the future growth of the Christian 
faith by means of testimony to, as distinguished from the 
actual sight of, the miraculous evidences of the Gospel. 

This view of miracles, as the indispensable means for 
producing that great result which we have before us, and 
that new moral era of the world under which we are 



VII] in their Practical Result 157 

living, meets again another objection which is sometimes 
raised against the truth of miracles. ' The general sense 
of society/ it is stated, ' rejects the notion of miracles 
taking place now-a-days; these extraordinary actions of 
Omnipotence are conveniently located in the past. But 
why this sort of general consent that a supernatural event 
is impossible now, if it was really possible then? It is 
evident that the imagination is only less scandalized by a 
miracle now than by a miracle then, because it realizes 
present time, and does not realize past. But if so, the 
modern acceptance of miracles is convicted of being unreal, 
and therefore whatever speculative arguments may be 
urged for the possibility of such events, the matter-of-fact 
test of human educated belief rejects them.' (5.) 

It is, then, to be admitted that the mind of society now 
is adverse to the notion of an hodiernal supernatural event. 
But I remark in the first place that this position is taken 
with a reserve. For, not to mention the undoubting belief 
in special Providences now, let a reported instance of a 
communication in later times between the world of de- 
parted spirits and the visible world be discussed; a fair 
representative of the established standard of belief does 
not commit himself to any absolute position against the 
possibility of such an occurrence. The relations between 
the seen and the unseen worlds, the state of the dead, and 
what channels are capable of being opened between un- 
clothed spirit and the mind which still tenants the frame 
of the flesh — all this lies so completely out of our know- 
ledge, that to decline to lay down the principle of an im- 
passable boundary between one portion of the Divine 
dominion and another, is felt to be not superstition, but 
caution. 

Of the weight, importance, and significance of a reserve, 
indeed, different estimates will be formed. To some a 
reserved ground appears but a light appendage to a 



158 Miracles regarded [Lect. 

dominant decision, a formality, a piece of argumentative 
etiquette, not to be taken into account in the general cal- 
culation; but to others, a reserved ground is a weighty 
thing : it represents some claim which is only weak in the 
scale at present because it happens to be distant, but which 
is strong in its own place, and which we may have some 
day to meet in that place. An argumentative reserve 
speaks to them with the force of silent prophecy ; it points 
to some truth whose turn will come some day, perhaps 
when we least expect it, and remind us of our proviso. 
All minds that require to be individually satisfied about 
the matter of their belief, must hold some truth or other 
under the form of a reserve. All truths do not come 
equally beneath our focus ; but if in this state of the case 
a mind ignores whatever hovers about the dim region of 
the circumference and meets the vision imperfectly, it con- 
demns itself to that barrenness which results from seeing 
a very little clearly, and seeing nothing else at all. A 
thoughtful mind sees in these distant reserves of the reason 
the skirts of great arguments, the borders of large regions 
of truth ; and the shadowy and imperfect vision supports 
the clear, enriching it with additional significance and 
important bearings. Thus in the wider circuit of religious 
doctrine we may see enough in one or other particular 
matter of belief to think that there may be more which we 
do not see ; and a theological mind will make allowance 
for its own defect of scope, admit such matter partially 
into its system, and give the benefit of a reserve to truths 
which lie in the distance and in the shadow. 

When, then, it is said that society neutralizes its belief 
in past miracles by a practical disbelief in the possibility 
of present, we reply that society does not reject the idea 
of the hodiernal supernatural, but expresses its judgment 
on that subject with a reserve. But we next observe, that 
if the mind of Christian society at the present day is 



VII] in their Practical Result 159 

adverse to the notion of hodiernal miracles, and scrutinizes 
with great rigour all pretensions of that kind, there is a 
sound and sufficient reason which may be assigned for this 
fact; viz. that the great end for which miracles were 
designed is now accomplished ; and that we are now living 
under that later providential era, and amidst those results, 
to which miracles were the first step and introduction. 
If we do not expect miracles now, there is a natural reason 
for it, viz. that the great purpose of them is past. Of our 
different attitude to past and present time upon this point, 
one account is, that our belief in the miraculous does not 
stand the touchstone of the actual present; but there is 
another explanation of it which is just as obvious, and 
which a believer can give, viz. that any set of means what- 
ever unavoidably becomes retrospective and a thing of the 
past when the end is achieved. So far as miraculous 
agency is regarded as a past agency by us, there is a reason 
to give for this view of it, arising from the facts of the case. 
We are living amid mighty and deep influences, which 
were originally set agoing by that agency; but which 
having been set going, no longer want it ; and at such a 
stage it is natural to us to look upon the irregular and 
extraordinary expedients employed in laying the founda- 
tion as superseded ; just as we remove the scaffolding 
when the edifice is raised, and take away the support of 
the arch when the keystone has been inserted. 

The preparatory and introductory period to a final dis- 
pensation is a natural period of miracles, such as the period 
which succeeds is not. In the antecedent state there was 
a great want felt, a void which the existing dispensation 
did not satisfy ; and the religious thought of the day was 
cast forward into a mysterious future, not, as Christian 
thought is now, heavenwards, but towards a consummation 
of revelation here below. The ancient Jew saw in his own 
dispensation an imperfect structure, the head of which was 



160 Miracles Regarded 

still wanting — the Messiah : all pointed to Him ; its cere- 
monial was typical ; and the whole system was an adum- 
bration of a great approaching Divine kingdom, and a 
great crowning Divine act. The very heart of the nation 
was thus the seat of a great standing prophecy ; all was 
anticipation and expectation; prophets kept alive the 
sacred longing ; miracles confirmed the prophetical office ; 
and in prospect was the miraculous outbreak of Divine 
power in the great closing dispensation itself. But this 
whole expectant attitude is in our case reversed. Ours is 
not a state of expectancy, and a day of forecastings and 
foreshadowings : we feel no void, throwing us on the future. 
On the contrary, we repose in Christian doctrine as the 
final stay of the human soul, and we are conscious that in 
this doctrine is contained all that can develop man; we 
know that it lias developed man, and that Christianity has 
made a moral change in the state of the world. With us, 
then, miracles are passed, so far as they are connected with 
the principal object with which miracles are concerned — 
revelation. It would be wholly unnatural, it would be 
contrary to the very account which we give of our own 
position, for us at this day to simulate the expectant state 
of the old Law, and throw ourselves back into the pro- 
spective stage. This would be doing violence to our whole 
knowledge and sense of reality. Though we cannot restrict 
the scope of miracles to one object, still, to cease to expect 
them when their chief end is gained, is only to do justice 
to the greatness of that end, to appreciate the truth and 
power of the Christian dispensation, and to observe what 
Christian doctrine has done for man. 



LECTURE VIII 

FALSE MIRACLES 

Matt. vii. 22 

Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils ; and in Thy name 
done ma,ny wonderful works ? 

A LARGE class of miraculous pretensions is not con- 
fined to one religion, or even to religion altogether, 
but belongs to human nature. Does man desire a miracle 
as a proof that a revelation is true ? That is a legitimate 
want. Does he desire one merely to gratify his curiosity 
and love of the marvellous, for excitement and not for use ? 
That is a morbid want. Eor though the innate love of the 
supernatural in man's heart is legitimately gratified by a 
miracle, man has no right to ask for miracles in order to 
gratify this affection, any more than he has to ask for them 
even as evidence, idly and treacherously, when he does not 
intend to accept them as such even when done. On both 
accounts " an adulterous generation" which " sought after 
signs" was once rebuked. This morbid want, however, 
joined to the eager expectation that God would constantly 
interpose to prevent the injurious effects of His general 
laws, has produced a constant stream of miraculous preten- 
sion in the world, which accompanies man wherever he is 
found, and is a part of his mental and physical history. 
Curiosity, imagination, misery, helplessness, and indolence, 
have all conspired to throw him upon this support, which 



1 62 False Miracles [Lect. 

he has sought in order to penetrate into the secrets of the 
future, to lift up the veil of the invisible world, and to ob- 
tain under calamity and disease that relief which God 
either did not design to give at all, or only to give through 
the instrumentality of human skill and industry. 

This perpetual phenomenon of miraculous pretension, 
this running accompaniment of human nature, takes indeed 
different forms, according to the religious belief, or the pre- 
vailing notions and movements of different ages ; to which 
it joins itself on, and which supply it with a handle. The 
affection for the marvellous has been successively heathen, 
Christian, and philosophical or scientific. Heathenism had 
its running stream of supernatural pretensions in the shape 
of prophecy, exorcism, and the miraculous cures of diseases 
which the temples of Esculapius recorded with pompous 
display. The Christian Church inherited the common fea- 
tures and characteristic impulses of human nature, for 
Christians were men, and became a scene of the same kind 
of display : — I speak of the miracles of the early and later 
Church so far as they come under the head of this standing 
result of human nature, without inquiring at present which 
of them have evidence of a peculiar and distinguishable 
kind. The doctrine of the Incarnation was the instrument 
of this human affection under Christianity ; it joined itself 
on to that doctrine, and used the virtues of the saints, or 
the fruits of man's participation through the Incarnation of 
the Divine nature, for its own purpose. The same affec- 
tion in our own day, abandoning its connexion with doc- 
trine, and even with religion, adopts philosophical ground, 
and avails itself of a scientific handle ; and, the trace of an 
occult law of our sentient being having been discovered, 
which resulted in some extraordinary bodily conditions and 
affections, has raised upon this basis a wild superstructure 
of Supernaturalism, extending at last to a systematic inter- 
course with the invisible world. This strong human affec- 



VIII] False Miracles 163 

tion has thus flourished successively upon heathen, upon 
Christian, and upon scientific material ; because in truth it 
is neither heathen, nor Christian, nor scientific, but human. 
Springing out of the common stock of humanity, which is 
the same in all ages, it adapts itself to the belief, the specu- 
lations, and the knowledge of its own day. It avails itself 
of every opening which religious truth or obscure laws of 
nature may afford, and every fresh growth of supernatural- 
ism borrows the type of the age. And thus is produced 
that constant succession of miraculous pretensions, which, 
varying in shade and form, and taking its colour from hea- 
then mythology, or Christian truth, or Gothic or Celtic 
fancy, or scientific mystery, is a perpetual and standing 
phenomenon of human nature ; its evidences being of one 
homogeneous type and one uniform level, which lies below 
a rational standard of proof. 

The criterion, therefore, which evidential miracles, or 
miracles which serve as evidence of a revelation, must 
come up to, if they are to accomplish the object for which 
they are designed, involves at the very outset this condi- 
tion, — that the evidence of such miracles must be distin- 
guishable from the evidences of this permanent stream of 
miraculous pretension in the world; that such miracles 
must be separated by an interval not only from the facts 
of the order of nature, but also from the common running 
miraculous, which is the simple offshoot of human nature. 
Can evidential miracles be inserted in this promiscuous 
mass, so as not to be confounded with it, but to assert 
their own truth and distinctive source ? If they cannot, 
there is an end to the proof of a revelation by miracles : if 
they can, it remains to see whether the Christian miracles 
are thus distinguishable, and whether their nature, their 
object, and their evidence vindicate their claim to this dis- 
tinctive truth and Divine source. 

1. The first great point, then, in the comparison of one 



1 64 False Miracles [Lect. 

set of miracles with the other, is the nature and character of 
the facts themselves. Supposing both sets of facts to be 
true, are we equally certain that both of them are miracles ? 
Now on this head we have to notice first a spontaneous ad- 
mission and confession on the part of the running miracu- 
lous, viz.. that the believers in it appear, in the case of a 
clear and undoubted miracle, i.e. a fact which if it is a true 
occurrence is such, to see almost as strong a distinction be- 
tween such a miracle and their own supernaturalism as 
they do between that miracle and the order of nature. 
When the heathens of the patristic age were confronted by 
the assertion of Christ's Resurrection, they answered at 
once that it was impossible that a dead man should come 
to life again, although they had their own current super- 
naturalism going on. But this was to admit a broad in- 
terval between the latter and the genuine miraculous. 
Jewish supernaturalism was indeed going on side by side 
with our Lord's miracles; and thence the inference has 
been drawn that His miracles could not in the very nature 
of the case be evidences of His distinctive teaching and 
mission, inasmuch as miracles were common to Himself 
and His opponents. But the same record which refers to 
Jewish thaumaturgy, also reveals the enormous distinction 
which those who practised or believed that thaumaturgy 
themselves made between it and our Lord's miracles. The 
restoration of sight to the man born blind was obviously 
regarded as a miracle in a sense quite distinguished from 
that in which they would have applied the term to a Jew- 
ish exorcism : it excited much the same resistance in their 
minds as if they had not had their own standing superna- 
turalism as a rival at all. And when our Lord's prophecy 
of His own resurrection was reported to the Roman gover- 
nor, the statement was — " Sir, this deceiver said." Why 
" deceiver ? " Why was this reported as a pretended 
miracle and an imposture, if the real miracle would have 



VIII] False Miracles 1 65 

made no difference to them, being neutralized and reduced 
to the measure of an ordinary current instance of superna- 
turalism by their own thaumaturgy ? Why instead of in- 
volving themselves in difficulties by resisting testimony to 
the facts of our Lord's miracles, did the Jews not accept 
the facts, and only deny the argument from them ? What 
reason could there be but one, viz. that they recognized a 
true miraculous character in our Lord's miracles which was 
wanting in their own ? And so when we come to the cur- 
rent miracles of the early Church, we meet with the same 
admission and confession of the broad distinction between 
them and the Gospel miracles, only not extracted unwit- 
tingly from Christian writers, but volunteered with full 
knowledge. The Fathers, while they refer to extraordi- 
nary Divine agency going on in their own day, also with 
one consent represent miracles as having ceased since the 
Apostolic era. But what was this but to confess that 
though events which pointed to the special hand of God, 
and so approximated to the nature of the miraculous, were 
still of frequent occurrence in the Church ; miracles of that 
decisive and positive character that they declared them- 
selves certainly to he miracles no longer took place. (1.) 

But this spontaneous admission on the part of the run- 
ning miraculous having been noticed, we next see that the 
very nature and type of the facts themselves account for 
and explain the admission. A deep latent scepticism ac- 
companies the current supernaturalism of mankind, which 
betrays itself in the very quality and rank of the reputed 
marvels themselves, — that they never rise above a low 
level, and repeat again and again the same ambiguous 
types. There is a confinement to certain classes of occur- 
rences, which, even if true, are very ambiguous miracles. 
The adhesion to this neutral, doubtful, and indecisive type, 
evinces a want of belief at the bottom in the existence of 
a real right in the system to assert a true dominion over 



1 66 False Miracles [Lect. 

nature. The system knows what it can do, and keeps 
within a safe line. Miraculous cures, vaticinations, visions, 
exorcisms, compose the current miracles of human history ; 
but these are just the class which is most susceptible of 
exaggerating colour and interpretation, and most apt to 
owe its supernatural character to the imaginations of the 
reporters. Hence the confession of inferiority, when this 
running supernaturalism was confronted by real miracles ; 
the admission of the distinction which existed between 
itself and the latter. The heathen saw that a resurrection 
from the dead was a fact about which, if it was true, there 
could be no mistake that it was a miracle ; whereas that 
some out of the crowds of sick that were carried to the 
temple of Esculapius afterwards recovered, was, notwith- 
standing the insertion of their cures in the register of the 
temple, no proof of miraculous agency to any reasonable 
man. Exorcism, which is the contemporary Jewish miracle 
referred to in the Gospels, is evidently, if it stands by itself 
and is not confirmed by other and more decided marks of 
Divine power, a miracle of a most doubtful and ambiguous 
character. However we may explain demoniacal posses- 
sion, whether we stop at the natural disorder itself, or 
carry it on to a supernatural cause, in either case a sudden 
strong impression made upon the patient's mind, such as 
would awaken his dormant energy and enable him to re- 
collect the scattered powers of his reason, would tend to 
cast off the disorder. The disease being an obstruction of 
the rational faculties, whatever resuscitated the faculties 
thoroughly would expel the disease ; and an agency which 
was not miraculous but only moral, might be equal in cer- 
tain cases to thus reawakening the faculties : a moral power 
might dismiss the demon that brooded upon the under- 
standing, as it does the demon that tempts to sin. Exor- 
cism therefore, even the legitimate practice, did not neces- 



VIII] False Miracles 1 6 7 

sarily involve miraculous power ; and the Jewish practice 
was replete with imposture. 

When we come to the miracles of the early Church we 
have to deal with a body of statement which demands our 
respect, on account of the piety and faith of those from 
whom we receive it ; but it is still open to us to consider 
the rank and pretension of these miracles, — whether the 
very type and character of them does not, upon the very 
point of the claim to be miraculous, radically distinguish 
them from the Gospel miracles; as the very confession 
of the Fathers, just noticed, implies. The current miracles 
of the patristic age are cures of diseases, visions, exorcisms : 
the higher sort of miracle being alluded to only in isolated 
cases, and then with such vagueness that it leaves a doubt 
as to the fact itself intended. But these are of the ambi- 
guous type which has been noticed. Take one large class 
— cures of diseases in answer to prayer. A miracle and a 
special providence, as I remarked in a previous Lecture, 1 
differ not in kind but in degree ; the one being an inter- 
ference of the Deity with natural causes at a point removed 
from our observation ; the other being the same brought 
directly home to the senses. When, then, the Fathers 
speak of sudden recoveries, in answer to prayers of the 
Church or of eminent saints, as miracles, they appear to 
mean by that term special providences rather than clear 
and sensible miracles. And remarkable visions would 
come under the same head. 

The very type, then, of the facts themselves which com- 
pose the current miracles of human history, the uniform 
low level which they maintain, stamps the impress of un- 
certainty upon them, in striking contrast with the freedom 
and range of the Gospel miracles. About the latter, sup- 
posing them to be true, there can be no doubt, — that they 

1 Page 7. 



1 68 False Miracles [Lect. 

are a clear outbreak of miraculous energy, of a mastery over 
nature ; but we cannot be equally assured upon this point 
in the case of the current miracles of the first ages of the 
Church, even supposing the truth of the facts. 

It will be urged perhaps that a large portion even of the 
Gospel miracles are of the class here mentioned as ambi- 
guous : cures, visions, expulsions of evil spirits : but this 
observation does not affect the character of the Gospel 
miracles as a body, because we judge of the body or whole 
from its highest specimens, not from its lowest. The ques- 
tion is, what power is it which is at work in this whole 
field of extraordinary action ? what is its nature, what is 
its extent ? But the nature and magnitude of this power 
is obviously decided by its greatest achievements, not by 
its least. The greater miracles are not cancelled by the 
lesser ones ; more than this, they interpret the lesser ones. 
It is evident that this whole miraculous structure hangs 
together, and that the same power which produces the 
highest, produces also the lowest type of miracle. The 
lower, therefore, receives an interpretation from its con- 
nexion with the higher which it would not receive by it- 
self. If we admit, e.g. our Lord's Eesurrection and Ascen- 
sion, what could be gained by struggling in detail for the 
interpretation of minor miracles ; as if these could be judged 
of apart from that great one ? 

The difference, again, in the very form of the wonder- 
working power in the case of the Gospel miracles, as com- 
pared with later ones, makes a difference in the character 
of the miracles themselves. A standing miraculous power 
lodged in a Person, and through Him in other persons ex- 
pressly admitted to the possession of it ; not making trials, 
in some of which it succeeds, in others not, but always 
accomplishing a miracle upon the will to do so, — this, 
which is the Gospel fact or phenomenon asserted, is un- 
doubtedly, if true, miraculous. But when the wonder- 



VIII] False Miracles 1 69 

working power comes before us as a gift residing in the 
whole Christian multitude and sown broad-cast over the 
Church at large, the miracles which issue out of this popu- 
lar mass are only a certain number of attempts which have 
succeeded out of a vastly greater number which have failed. 
But such tentative miracles are defective in the miraculous 
character from the very nature of the facts ; because chance 
accounts for a certain proportion of coincidences happening 
out of a whole field of events. 

When the running miraculous is raised above the low 
level, which betrays its own want of confidence in itself 
and its professed command over nature, it is by a pecu- 
liarity which convicts it upon another count. There is a 
wildness, a puerile extravagance, a grotesqueness, and ab- 
surdity in the type of it such as to disqualify it for being 
a subject of evidence. The sense of what is absurd, ridi- 
culous, and therefore impossible as an act of God, is part of 
our moral nature : and if a miracle even seen with our ow T n 
eyes, cannot force us to accept anything contrary to mora- 
lity or a fundamental truth of religion, still less can pro- 
fessed evidence force us to believe in Divine acts, which 
are upon the face of them unworthy of the Divine author- 
ship. 1 It is true that of this discrediting feature there is 

1 We observe indeed in the region of God's animate creation, various 
animal natures produced of a grotesque and wild type ; but to argue from 
this that we are to expect the same type in bodies and classes of miracles, 
is to apply the argument of analogy without possessing that condition 
which is necessary for it — a parallel case (see p. 37). We can argue from 
one Divine act to the probability or not improbability of another like it, 
provided the cases with which the two are concerned are parallel cases ; 
but the creation of an animal is no parallel case to the Divine act in a 
miracle ; nor therefore can wildness, enormity, and absurdity in a miracle 
plead the precedent of the singular types which occur in the animal king- 
dom. The latter has been diversified for reasons and for ends included 
within the design of creation : but a miracle is not an act done by God as 
Creator : it is a communication to man, it is addressed to him, and there- 
fore it must be suited to him to whom it is addressed, and be consistent 
with that character which our moral sense and revelation attribute to the 



1 70 False Miracles [Lect. 

no definite standard or criterion, and that when we refuse 
to believe in a miracle on account of the absurdity and 
puerility in the type of it, we do so upon the responsibility 
of our own sense and perceptions; but many important 
questions are determined in no other way than this ; in- 
deed all morality is ultimately determined by an inward 
sense. 

A fact, however, is not in itself ridiculous, because a 
ridiculous aspect can be put upon it. The dumb brute 
speaking with man's voice to forbid the madness of the pro- 
phet, the dismissal of a legion of foul spirits out of their 
usurped abode in man into a herd of swine, — whatever be 
the peculiarity in these two miracles which distinguishes 
them from the usual scriptural model, it is no mean, trivial, 
or vulgar character. Did we meet with these two simply 
as poetical facts or images in the great religious poem of 
the middle ages, they would strike us as full of force and 
solemnity, and akin to a grand eccentric type which occurs 
not rarely in portions of that majestic work, and serves as a 
powerful and deep instrument of expression in the hands 
of the poet. Looking then simply to their type, these 
miracles stand their ground. While it must also be ob- 
served that in the case of miracles of an eccentric type, the 
quantity of them and the proportion which they bear to 
the rest is an important consideration. The same type 
which in unlimited profusion and exuberance marks a 
source in human fancy and delusion is not extravagant as 
a rare and exceptional feature of a dispensation of miracles 
just emerging and then disappearing again, as a fragmentary 
deviation from a usual limit and pattern, to which it is in 
complete subordination. One or two miracles of a certain 
form in Scripture have indeed been taken full advantage of, 

Divine Being. Upon this ground a solemn, a high stamp must always 
recommend a miracle, while a ridiculous type is inconsistent with the in- 
trinsic dignity of a Divine interposition. 



VIII] False Miracles 1 7 1 

as if they supplied an ample justification of any number 
and quantity of the most extravagant later miracles ; but, 
supposing in our estimate we even reduced the eccentricity 
of the latter to this exceptional Scripture type, quantity 
and degree make all the difference between what is im- 
pressive and what is puerile, what is weighty and what is 
absurd. The miraculous providence of Scripture, it must 
be remembered, covers the whole period from the creation 
of the world to the Christian era. The very rare occurrence 
of a type in a long reach of Providential operations, is no 
precedent for it as the prevailing feature of whole bodies 
and classes of miracles. The temper of the course and 
system of supernatural action is shewn by the proportion 
preserved in it, and by the check and limit under which 
such a type appears. 

2. In comparing two different bodies of miracles their 
respective objects and results necessarily come into con- 
sideration. I have, however, in a previous Lecture con- 
sidered the great moral result of the Gospel miracles, 
exhibited in that new era of the world and condition of 
human society which they were the means of founding. 
Any comparison of this great result with the objects of 
current supernaturalism can only reveal the immense in- 
feriority of the latter ; — even when these objects are not 
volatile, morbid, or mean. But in how large a proportion 
do motives of the latter kind prevail ! Motives of mere 
curiosity and idle amusement ! Motives even worse than 
these — impatience and rebellion against the boundaries 
which separate the visible and invisible worlds ! What is 
the chief avowed object, e.g. of the supernaturalism of this 
day ? To open a regular systematic intercourse between 
the living and the dead ! But how does such a fantastic 
and extravagant object, as that of breaking down the barriers 
of our present state of existence, at once convict and con- 
demn such pretensions themselves as fallacious ! As much 



172 False Miracles [Lect. 

so as, on the other hand, their grand and serious moral 
result recommends and is an argument for the Gospel 
miracles. 

3. When from the type and character of the professed 
miracles of subsequent ages, and their objects, as compared 
with the miracles of Scripture, we turn to the evidence on 
which they respectively rest, we meet with various dis- 
tinctions which have been very ably brought out and com- 
mented on by writers on evidence. And in the first place, 
a very large proportion of the miracles of subsequent ages 
stop short of the very first introduction to valid evidence, 
that preliminary condition which is necessary to qualify 
them even to be examined ; — viz. contemporary testimony. 
That certain great and cardinal Gospel miracles — which if 
granted clear away all antecedent objection to the reception 
of the rest — possess contemporary testimony, must be 
admitted by everybody, at the peril of invalidating all 
historical evidence, and involving our whole knowledge of 
the events of the past in doubt. That the first promulgators 
of Christianity asserted as a fact which had come under the 
cognizance of their senses the Resurrection of our Lord from 
the dead, is as certain as anything in history. But the 
great mass of later miracles do not fulfil even this preliminary 
condition, or reach even this previous stage of evidence. 

But, the level of contemporary testimony gained, the 
character of the witnesses, and the extent to which their 
veracity is tested by painv and suffering, make an immense 
difference in the value of that testimony. 

1. In estimating the strength of a witness we must begin 
by putting aside as irrelevant all those features of his char- 
acter, however admirable, striking, and impressive, which 
do not bear upon the particular question whether his report 
of a fact is likely to be correct. We have only to do with 
character in one point of view, viz. as a guarantee to the 
truth of testimony ; but a reference to this simple object at 



VI II J False Miracles 173 

once puts on one side various traits and qualities in men 
which in themselves are of great interest, and excite our ad- 
miration. We value an ardent zeal in itself, but not as a 
security for this further object, because men under the 
influence of enthusiasm are apt to misstate and exaggerate 
facts which favour their own side. So, again, an affectionate 
disposition is beautiful and admirable in itself, but it does 
not add weight to testimony ; and the same may be said of 
other high and noble moral gifts and dispositions — generosity, 
courage, enterprising spirit, perseverance, loyalty to a cause 
and to persons. Even faith, only regarded as one specific 
gift and power, in which light it is sometimes spoken of in 
Scripture, the power, viz. of vividly embracing and realizing 
the idea of an unseen world, does not add to the strength 
of a witness, though in itself, even as thus limited, a high 
and excellent gift. And thus might be constructed a char- 
acter which would be a striking and interesting form of the 
religious mind, would lead the way in high undertakings, 
would command the obedience of devoted followers, and 
would be in itself an object of singular admiration; but 
which would not be valuable as adding solid weight to 
testimony. Perfect goodness is undoubtedly goodness in 
all capacities and functions, and stands the test of relation 
to all purposes ; but, taking human nature as we find it, a 
good man and a good witness are not quite identical. For 
all this assemblage of high qualities may exist, and that 
particular characteristic may be absent upon which we de- 
pend when we rely upon testimony in extreme and crucial 
cases. 

That characteristic is a strong perception of and regard 
to the claims of truth. Truth is a yoke. If we would wish 
facts to be so and so, and they are not, that is a trial ; there 
is a disposition to rebel against this trial ; and this disposi- 
tion has always a ready instrument in the faculty of speech, 
to whose peculiar nature it belongs to state facts either as 



1 74 False Miracles [Lect. 

they are or as tliey are not, with equal facility. To submit 
then to the yoke of truth under the temptation of this 
singularly simple and ready agency for rejecting it, requires 
a stern and rigorous fidelity to fact in the mind, as part of 
our obedience to God. But where there are many excellent 
affections and powers, sometimes this solid and fixed estimate 
of truth is wanting ; while, on the other hand, there are 
characters not deficient in these affections and powers, into 
whose composition it deeply enters, and whose general 
moral conformation is a kind of guarantee that they 
possess it. 

Such a character is that which lives in the pages of the 
New Testament as the Apostolic character. If we com- 
pare that model with the model set up in later times, the 
popular pattern of Christian perfection which ruled in 
the middle ages, we find a great difference. There is 
undoubtedly deep enthusiasm, if we may call it so, in the 
character of the Apostles, an absorption in one great cause, 
a depth of wonder and emotion, high impulse, ardent long- 
ing and expectation ; and yet with all this what striking 
balance and moderation, which they are able too — a very 
strong test of their type — to maintain amid circumstances 
just the most calculated to upset these virtues ! At war 
with the whole world, lifted up above it, and trampling its 
affections beneath their feet ; living upon heavenly hopes, 
and caring for one thing alone, the spread of the Gospel, — 
theirs was indeed a grand and elevating situation ; but at 
the same time it was just one adapted to throw them off 
their balance, and narrow their standard. Mere enthusi- 
astic men would have been carried away by their an- 
tagonism to the whole existing state of society to set up 
some visionary model of a Christian life, wholly separated 
from all connexion with the cares and business of earth. 
But although the Apostles certainly gave scope to and 
assert the duty of an extraordinary and isolated course of 



VI 1 1] False Miracles 1 7 5 

life, under certain circumstances and with reference to 
particular ends, their standard is wholly free from contrac- 
tion ; their view of life and its duties is as sensible and 
as judicious as the wisest and most prudent man's ; nor do 
they say — ' You may be an inferior Christian if you live 
in the world, but if you want to be a higher Christian you 
must quit it;' but they recognize the highest Christian 
perfection as consistent with the most common and ordin- 
ary form of life. Their great lessons are, that goodness 
lies in the heart, and that the greatest sacrifices which a 
man makes in life are his internal conquests over vain 
desires, aspirations, and dreams of this world; which 
deepest mortifications consist with the most common out- 
ward circumstances. This plain, solid, unpretending view 
of human life in conjunction with the pursuit of an ideal, 
the aim at perfection, is indeed most remarkable, — if it was 
not a new combination in the world. What I would observe, 
however, now is that such men are weighty witnesses ; 
that their testimony has the force of statements of fact 
from men of grave and solid temperament, who could stand 
firm, and maintain a moderate and adjusted ground against 
the strong tendencies to extravagance inherent in their 
whole situation and aim. 

On the other hand, when I come to a later type of char- 
acter which rose up in the Christian Church, I see in it 
much which is splendid and striking — high aim and enter- 
prise, courageous self-denial, aspiring faith, but not the 
same guarantee to the truth of testimony. Ambition or 
exaggeration in character is in its own nature a divergence 
from strict moral truth ; which, though it is more effective 
in challenging the eye, and strikes more instantaneously as 
an image, detracts from the authority of the character, and 
the dependence we place upon it for the purpose now 
mentioned. 

The remark may be made, again, that the original pro- 



1 76 False Miracles I Lect. 



mulgation of Christianity was one of those great under- 
takings which react upon the minds of those engaged in it, 
and tend to raise them above insincerity and delusion. 
The cause itself was, so far as any cause can be, a guaran- 
tee for the truthfulness of its champions ; its aim was to 
renovate the human race sunk in corruption ; it proclaimed 
a revelation indeed from heaven, but that revelation was 
still in connexion with the most practical of all aims. But 
this cannot be said of most of the later causes in behalf of 
which the professed evidence of miracles was enlisted : 
spurious and corrupt developments of Christian doctrine 
do not give the same security for the truthfulness of their 
propagators. The quality of the cause, the nature of the 
object, is not in fact wholly separable from the character of 
the witness ; and one of these heads runs into the other. 
But this consideration of itself goes far to dispose of whole 
bodies of later miracles ; for if we hold certain later doc- 
trines, the deification of the Virgin Mother, Transubstantia- 
tion, and others, to be corruptions of Christianity, we are 
justified in depreciating the testimony of the teachers and 
spreaders of these doctrines to the alleged miracles in sup- 
port of them. The nature of the cause affects our estimate 
of the propagators. Indeed, let the human intellect once 
begin to busy itself not only about false deductions from 
Christian doctrine, but even about doubtful ones, nay even 
about true but minute and remote ones, and the spirit and 
temper of the first promulgators of Christianity is soon 
exchanged for another. Propagandism has not a reputa- 
tion for truthfulness. As doctrine diverges from the 
largeness of the Scripture type into narrow points, the 
active dissemination of it interests, excites, and elates as a 
speculative triumph. 

When from the character of the witnesses to the Gospel 
miracles we turn to the ordeal which they underwent, we 
find another remarkable peculiarity attaching to their 



VI 1 1] False Miracles 1 7 7 

testimony, viz. that it was tested in a manner and to an 
extent which is without parallel: because, in truth, the 
whole life of sacrifice and suffering which the Apostles led 
was from beginning to end the consequence of their belief 
in certain miraculous facts which they asserted themselves 
to have witnessed ; upon which facts their whole preaching 
and testimony was based, and without which they would 
have had no Gospel to preach. In all ages, indeed, dif- 
ferent sects have been persecuted for their opinions, and 
given the testimony of their suffering to the sincerity of 
those opinions ; but here are whole lives and long lives of 
suffering in testimony to the truth of particular facts ; the 
Eesurrection and Ascension being the warrant to which 
the Apostles appeal for the authority and proof of their 
whole ministry and doctrine. 

On the other hand, those mere current assertions of 
supernatural effects produced, which prevail in all days, 
and in our own not least, but which are made irresponsibly 
by any persons who choose to make them, without any 
penalty or risk to the assertors to act as a test of their 
truthfulness, have hardly, in strict right, a claim even 
upon our grave consideration ; because in truth upon such 
subjects untested evidence is worthless evidence. We can 
conceive a certain height of character which would of 
itself command the assent of individuals, but the world at 
large cannot reasonably be satisfied without some ordeal of 
the witnesses. We apply an ordeal to testimony even to 
ordinary facts, when the life or liberty of another depends 
upon it, and in this case cross-examination in a court is 
the form of ordeal; but pain and sacrifice on the part of 
the witnesses is also intrinsically an ordeal and probation 
of testimony; which condition current supernaturalism 
does not fulfil, but which the Gospel miracles do. The 
testimony to the latter is tested evidence of a very strong 
kind ; because the trials which the Apostles endured were 

M 



1 78 False Miracles [Lect. 

"both lasting, and also owing directly to their belief in 
certain facts, to which, they bore witness ; thus going 
straight to the point as guarantees for the truth of that 
attestation. But it would be difficult to discover any set 
of later miracles which stand upon evidence thus tested ; 
which can appeal to lives of trial and suffering undergone 
by the witnesses as the direct result of their belief in and 
witness to such miracles. (2.) 

One consideration, however, of some force remains to be 
added. It is confessed that the mediaeval record contains 
a vast mass of false and spurious miracles, — so vast indeed 
that those who wish to claim credence for some particular 
ones, or who, without mentioning particular ones, argue 
that some or other out of the whole body may have been 
true, still virtually abandon the great body as indefensible. 
The mediaeval record therefore comes before us at the very 
outset as a maimed and discredited authority — discredited 
because it has adopted and thrown its shield over an 
immense quantity of material admitted to be untrue and 
counterfeit, and so identified itself with falsehood. So far 
as any informant takes up and commits himself to false 
intelligence, so far he destroys his own credit. An 
immense mass of admitted spurious miracles therefore 
adopted by the mediaeval record throws doubt upon oil the 
accounts of such facts transmitted to us through the same 
channel; because to that extent it affects the general 
character of the record as an informant, and invalidates its 
authority. The Scripture record, on the other hand, does 
not at any rate come before us with this admitted blot 
upon its credit in the first instance. The information it 
contains has doubtless to be examined with reference to 
the evidence upon which it rests; that is to say, the 
authority of the record has to be investigated; but it does 
not present itself with any admitted discrediting stain in 
the first instance : whereas such an admitted stain does 



VIII] False Miracles 179 

in limine attach to the mediaeval record. But this con- 
sideration receives additional force when we take into 
account two great causes of miraculous pretensions which 
were deeply rooted in the character of the middle ages, 
but from which Christianity at its original promulgation 
was free. 

1. It is but too plain that in later ages, as the Church 
advanced in worldly power and position, besides the mis- 
takes of imagination and impression, a temper of deliberate 
and audacious fraud rose up within the Christian body, and 
set itself in action for the spread of certain doctrines, as 
well as for the great object of the concentration of Church 
power in one absolute monarchy. Christianity started with 
the sad and ominous prophecy that out of the very bosom 
of the religion of humility should arise the greatest form of 
pride that the world should ever know — one, " as God 
sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is 
God;" 1 the complete fulfilment of which, if yet in store, 
has certainly not been without its broad foreshadowings ; 
for indeed Christian pride has transcended heathen by how 
much Christianity is a more powerful stimulus to man 
than heathenism ; giving a depth to his whole nature, which 
imparts itself even to his passions, to his ambition and love 
of dominion, and to his propagation of opinion. But this 
formidable spirit once arisen in the Church, falsehood, which 
is the tool of the strong even more than of the weak, is its 
natural instrument. Hence the bold forgeries of the middle 
ages, which were the acts of a proud will, determined that 
nothing should stand in the way between it and certain 
objects, and that if facts did not exist on its side, they 
should be made. And hence also counterfeit miracles. 
But mere historical criticism must admit that this spirit of 
daring, determined, and presumptuous fraud, which com- 
piled false authorities, and constructed false marvels simply 

1 2 Thess. ii. 4. 



i8o False Miracles [Lect 

because they were wanted, was the manifestation of a later 
age ; and that the temper of the first promulgators of the 
Gospel was wholly free from such a stain. (3.) 

2. Another great cause of miraculous pretensions in later 
ages was the adoption of miracles as the criterion and test 
of high goodness; as if extraordinary sanctity naturally 
issued in a kind of dominion over nature. This popular 
idea dictated that rule of canonization which required that, 
before a saint was inserted in the Calendar, proof should be 
given of miracles either performed by him in his lifetime 
or produced by the virtue of his remains. Such a criterion 
of sanctity is intrinsically irrelevant ; for in forming a 
judgment of a man's character, motives, and dispositions, 
the extent of his charity and self-denial and the like, what 
can be more beside the question than to inquire whether or 
not these moral manifestations of him were accompanied 
by suspensions of the laws of nature. The natural test of 
character is conduct ; or, which is the same thing, moral 
goodness is its own proof and evidence. The man is before 
us ; he reveals himself to us not only by his formal outward 
acts, but by that whole manifold expression of himself, 
conscious and unconscious, in act, word and look, which is 
synonymous with life. The very highest form of goodness 
is thus a disclosure to us which attests itself, and to which 
miracles are wholly extrinsic. But what I remark now is 
that the adoption of such a test as this must in the nature 
of the case produce a very large crop of false miracles. 
The criterion having been adopted must be fulfilled ; 
providence does not fulfil it because providence is not 
responsible for it, and therefore man must ; he who instituted 
the test must look to its verification. But this whole 
notion of miracles as a test of sanctity was a complete 
innovation upon the Scripture idea. The Bible never re- 
presents miracles as a tribute to character, but as following 
a principle of use, as means to certain ends. One saint 



VIII] False Miracles \ 8 r 

possesses the gift because it is wanted for an object; as 
great a saint does not because it is not wanted. The fruits 
of the Spirit always figure as their own witnesses in Scrip- 
ture, superior to all extraordinary gifts, and not requiring 
their attestation. The Christian is described as gifted with 
discernment. There needs no miracle to tell him who is a 
good man and who is not ; he knows him by sure signs, 
knows him from the hypocrite and pretender; "he that is 
spiritual judgeth all things," is a scrutinizer of hearts, and 
is not deceived by appearances. (4.) 

Between the evidence, then, upon which the Gospel 
miracles stand and that for later miracles we see a broad 
distinction, arising- — not to mention again the nature and 
type of the Gospel miracles themselves — from the contem- 
poraneous date of the testimony to them, the character of 
the witnesses, the probation of the testimony ; especially 
when we contrast with these points the false doctrine and 
audacious fraud which rose up in later ages, and in con- 
nexion with which so large a portion of the later miracles 
of Christianity made their appearance. But now to carry 
the argument into another stage. What if — to make the 
supposition — it was discovered, when we came to a close 
examination of particulars, that for several of the later 
miracles of Christianity there was evidence forthcoming 
approximating in strength to the evidence for the Gospel 
miracles — what would be the result? Would any dis- 
advantage ensue to the Gospel miracles, any doubtfulness 
accrue to their position as a consequence of this discovery, 
and additional to any previous intrinsic ground of difficulty '? 
None : all the result would be that we should admit these 
miracles over and above the Gospel ones : but the position 
of the latter would not be at all affected by this conclusion : 
they would remain, and their evidence would remain, just 
what they were before. We reject the mass of later 
miracles because they want evidence ; not because our argu- 



1 82 False Miracles [Lect. 

ment obliges us to reject all later miracles whether they 
have evidence or not. The acceptance of the Gospel 
miracles does not commit ns to the denial of all other ; nor 
therefore would the discovery of strong evidence for some 
other miracles at all imperil the ground and the use of the 
Gospel ones. Many of our own divines have admitted the 
truth of later miracles, only raising the question of the date 
up to which the continuance of miraculous powers in the 
Church lasted, some fixing this earlier, and some later. But 
were our divines therefore precluded from using the Gospel 
miracles as evidences of Christianity? Do our brethren 
even of the Eoman communion, because they accept a 
much larger number of later miracles than our divines 
do, thereby cut themselves off from the appeal to the 
miraculous evidences of Christianity ? Pascal accepted a 
miracle of his own day, of which he wrote a defence ; and 
yet he prepared the foundation of a treatise on the Evidences 
of Christianity, and the evidences of miracles with the rest : 
nor was he guilty of any error of logic in so doing. It is 
true our divines may have been under a mistake in accept- 
ing some miracles which they did; and certainly our 
Eoman Catholic brethren are in our judgment very much 
mistaken in a great number of miracles which they accept : 
but that was only a mistake as to the particular later 
miracles accepted ; they were neither of them mistaken in 
the general notion, which was plainly reasonable, that they 
could accept both later miracles and Gospel miracles too. (5 .) 
The application of the fact of the crowd of later and 
mediaeval miracles to neutralize the evidences of the Gos- 
pel miracles proceeds upon the assumption that the crowd 
of later miracles does in reality rest upon as strong evi- 
dence as the Gospel ones : and this assumption has been 
met in the body of this Lecture by distinguishing between 
their respective evidences. But if we leave the crowd and 
single out particular later miracles, then there is no 



VI 1 1] False Miracles 1 83 

obligation upon us to distinguish at all between the evi- 
dences of the two. Such later miracles may be admitted to 
have evidence of a substantial character and approximating 
to the evidences of the Gospel miracles, without at all im- 
perilling the credit of the latter; because one set of 
miracles is not false because others are true. We assert 
indeed that no later miracles have equal evidence to that 
of the great miracles of the Gospel: but could even an 
equal amount of evidence in some cases be shewn, no con- 
sequence would ensue unfavourable to the latter. We 
should simply have to accept the later over and above the 
earlier. The assumption which appears to exist in some 
quarters that we are obliged to disown and reject all later 
miracles, as being a degrading connexion for and a source 
of discredit to the Gospel miracles, is wholly without 
authority. Such an assumption would indeed endanger the 
position of the Scripture miracles ; because in proportion as 
the evidence for later miracles assumed weight and sub- 
stance and approximated to the evidence of the Gospel 
miracles, and was notwithstanding rejected ; in that pro- 
portion we should be in danger of having in consistency to 
reject the Gospel miracles too. But there is no ground for 
such an assumption. 

One conclusion, however, there is which is a tempting 
one to deduce from the multitude of spurious miracles, viz. 
the impossibility of distinguishing the true ones. ' We 
cannot,' it may be said, ' go into particulars or draw minute 
distinctions. Here is a vast crowd of miraculous preten- 
sions, the product of every age of Christianity, including 
that of its very birth. Of this an overwhelming proportion 
is confessed to be false. But how can we distinguish be- 
tween what is false and what is true of this promiscuous 
mass ? Miraculous evidence in such a condition defeats 
itself and is unavailable for use ; and practically we must- 
treat Christianity as if it stood without it.' 



184 False Miracles [Lect. 

Nothing then can be more certain than that, granted 
true miracles, so long as man is man, these true miracles 
must encounter the rivalry of a growth of false ones, and 
the evidential disadvantage, whatever it be, thence ensuing. 
And therefore this position amounts to saying that per- 
manent miraculous evidence to any religion is an impossible 
contrivance. 

But such a wholesale inference as this from the existence 
of spurious miracles is contrary to all principles of evidence, 
and to the whole method in practice among mankind for 
ascertaining the truth of facts. Do we want to dispose of 
all cases of recorded miracles by some summary rule which 
decides them all in a heap, the rule that a sample is enough, 
that one case settles the rest, and that the evidence of one 
is the evidence of all ? We have no such rule for ordinary 
questions of moral evidence relating to human actions and 
events. If any one principle is clear in this department, 
it is that every case which comes under review is a special 
case. In civil justice, e.g. every case is determined upon 
its own merits, and according to our estimate of the quality 
of the testimony, the situation of the parties, and the con- 
nexion and coincidence of the facts in that particular case. 
No two sets of witnesses, no two sets of circumstances are 
exactly alike. Inasmuch, then, as these constitute in every 
case the grounds of decision, every case of evidence in our 
courts is a special case. Two successive causes or trials 
might be pronounced upon a "prima facie view to be exactly 
alike as cases of evidence ; they look the same precise 
mixtures of evidence and counter evidence, probabilities 
and counter probabilities ; and a person would be tempted 
to say that one decided the ' other. Yet upon a close 
examination the greatest possible difference is discovered 
in the two fabrics of evidence, and consequently the judg- 
ment is different. In proportion as the examination pene- 
trates into each case and comes into close quarters with 



VIII] False Miracles 1 8 5 

the witnesses, the circumstances, the connexion of facts in 
it, the common type of the two is cast off, the special 
characteristics of each come out into stronger and stronger 
light, the different weight of the testimony, the different 
force of the facts. There are universal rules relating to the 
punishment when the crime is proved, and to the right 
when the conditions are proved,, but of what constitutes 
proof there is no rule. This is a special conclusion, 
according to the best judgment, from the special premisses. 
There is no royal road to truth in the evidence of facts ; 
every case is a special case. It is true that main features 
of fact, as well as types of testimony, repeat themselves 
often ; but in every case they demand and we give them a 
fresh inspection. 

It only requires the advantage of this principle to bring 
out the strong points, the significant features, and the effec- 
tive weight of the evidence for the Gospel miracles. Upon 
the summary supposition indeed that the evidence of 
miracles is a class of evidence, which, after the sight of 
some samples, dispenses with the examination of the rest, 
those miracles would stand little chance ; but we have no 
right to this summary supposition; the evidence of the 
Gospel miracles is a special case which must be decided on 
its own grounds. Were the annals of mankind crowded 
even much more than they are with spurious cases, we 
should still have to take the case of the Gospel miracles by 
itself. The general phrase in use, " the value of testimony," 
conceals degrees of strength ; the term " competent witness" 
hides all the interval which lies between an average wit- 
ness who appears in court, and the sublimest impersona- 
tion of the grave, the holy, the simple and truthful charac- 
ter. The phrase " ordeal of testimony" covers all the 
degrees in severity and duration of such ordeal. This 
degree in the strength of testimony is, however, in truth 
the critical and turning-point in the evidence of miracles ; 



1 86 False Miracles [Lect. 

for miracles are a weight resting upon the support of that 
evidence; but whether a support can bear a particular 
weight must depend on the degree of strength residing in 
that support. To ascertain however the degree of strength 
which belongs to the evidence for the Gospel miracles, we 
must go into the special case of that evidence ; and what 
we maintain is, that when we do go specially into the 
evidence for those miracles, we find this high degree of 
strength in it : that its foundation lies so deep in the won- 
derful character and extraordinary probation of the wit- 
nesses, and in the unique character and result of the reve- 
lation, that it sustains the weight which it is required to 
sustain. 

The truth of the miraculous credentials of Christianity 
rests upon various arguments, the mutual coherence and 
union of which forms the evidence of them. Nor in a case 
of evidence must we narrow the term ' argument ;' any- 
thing is an argument which naturally and legitimately 
produces an effect upon our minds, and tends to make us 
think one way rather than another. Nor in judging upon 
the force a ad weight of these arguments, can we dispense 
with a proper state of the affections. It is no condition of 
a sound judgment that there should be an absence of feel- 
ing in it ; our affections are a part of our judgment ; an argu- 
ment only sinks into us properly, and takes proper hold of 
our minds, by means of the feelings which take it up and 
carry it into the understanding. One man thinks nothing 
of an argument, another a great deal of it, because feeling 
enables the one to see the argument, the other wants this 
light by which to see it. It is thus a great mistake to sup- 
pose that those who are absorbed in the pleasurable exer- 
tion of the intellect and are without the religious emotions, 
who do not hope, who do not fear as spiritual beings, are 
the best judges of religious evidences. For the truth is, in 
such a state a man is not possessed of his whole nature ; a 



VI 1 1] False Miracles 1 8 7 

man is only half himself; nay, he is but a miserable frag- 
ment of himself. Hope and fear are strong impulses to 
and enliveners of the understanding ; they quicken the per- 
ceptions; under their purifying and sharpening influence 
we see the force of truths and arguments which otherwise 
we are too dull to see. Thus half of a man's nature may 
reject the Christian evidence, but the whole accepts it. 
When every part of us is represented in our state of mind, 
when the religious affections as well as the intellect are 
strong and lively, then only is our state of mind a reason- 
able one, then only are we our proper selves ; but the issue 
of this collective whole is Christian belief. 



NOTES 



NOTES 



LECTUEE I 



NOTE 1, p. ii 

THE necessity of miracles to prove a revelation is assumed in the 
general language of divines. Thus Butler : " The notion of a 
miracle, considered as a proof of a Divine mission, has been stated with 
great exactness by divines ; and is, I think, sufficiently understood by 
every one. There are also invisible miracles, the Incarnation of Christ, 
for instance, which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a 
mission, but require themselves to be proved by visible miracles. Revelation 
itself too is miraculous and miracles are the proof of it." (Analogy, pt. 
ii. ch. ii.) The writer assumes here that for the revelation of things 
supernatural and undiscoverable by human reason, miraculous evi- 
dence is necessary to attest its truth. The "invisible miracle," i.e. 
the doctrine of the Incarnation, he says, " requires to be proved by 
visible miracles." " Miracles are the proof of revelation," because re- 
velation is itself miraculous, — is an invisible miracle which needs the 
visible to serve as guarantee to it. Again : " Take in the considera- 
tion of religion, or the moral system of the world, and then we see 
distinct particular reasons for miracles ; to afford mankind instruc- 
tion additional to that of nature, and to attest the truth of it." 
(Analogy, pt. ii. ch. ii.) Again : " In the evidence of Christianity 
there seem to be several things of great weight, not reducible to the 
head either of miracles or the completion of prophecy, in the common 
acceptation of the words. But these two are its direct and funda- 
mental proofs : and those other things, however considerable they are, 
yet ought never to be urged apart from its direct proofs, but always 
to be joined to them." (Analogy, pt. ii. ch. vii.) Leslie writes: " The 
deists acknowledge a God, of an Almighty power, who made all 
things. Yet they would put it out of His power to make any revela- 



192 Note i [Lect. 

tion of His will to mankind. For if we cannot be certain of any 
miracle, how should we know when God sent anything extraordinary 
to "us?" (Short and Easy Method with Deists.) Paley says: "Now 
in what way can a revelation be made but by miracles ? In none 
which we are able to conceive. Consequently in whatever degree it 
is possible, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be com- 
municated to mankind at all, in the same degree it is probable, or 
not very improbable, that miracles should be wrought." (Evidences 
of Christianity : Preparatory Considerations.) 

That the truth of the Christian miracles, however, is necessary for 
the defence of Christianity is a point altogether independent of the 
question of the necessity of miracles, for a revelation in the first in- 
stance, as Mr. Mansel observes : — 

" Whether the doctrinal truths of Christianity could or could not 
have been propagated among men by moral evidence alone, without 
any miraculous accompaniments, it is at least certain that such was 
not the manner in which they actually were propagated, according to 
the narrative of Scripture. If our Lord not only did works appar- 
ently surpassing human power, but likewise expressly declared that 
He did those works by the power of God, and in witness that the 
Father bad sent Hirn ; — if the Apostles not only wrought works of a 
similar kind to those of their Master, but also expressly declared that 
they did so in His name ; the miracles, as thus interpreted by those 
who wrought them, become part of the moral as well as the sensible 
evidences of the religion which they taught, and cannot be denied 
without destroying both kinds of evidence alike 

" The scientific question relates to the possibility of supernatural 
occurrences at all ; and if this be once decided in the negative, Chris- 
tianity as a religion must necessarily be denied along with it. Some 
moral precepts may indeed remain, which may or may not have been 
first enunciated by Christ, but which in themselves have no essential 
connexion with one person more than with another ; but all belief in 
Christ as the great Example, as the teacher sent from God, as the 
crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to return. The perfect 
sinlessness of His life and conduct can no longer be held before us as 
our type and pattern, if the works which He professed to perform by 
Divine power were either not performed at all or were performed by 
human science and skill. No mystery impenetrable by human rea- 
son, no doctrine incapable of natural proof, can be believed on His 
authority ; for if He professed to work miracles, and wrought them 
not, what warrant have we for the trustworthiness of other parts of 
His teaching?" (Aids to Faith, pp. 4, 5.) 

An able and thoughtful writer on " Miracles,'' in the Christian 
Remembrancer, puts the necessity of miracles as evidence of our 
Lord's Divine Nature in the following point of view :— 

" Truths, such as ' God is a Spirit,' or ' Do unto others as you 



I] 



Note i 193 



would they should do unto you,' are abstract truths, resting on funda- 
mental principles in the human mind. They therefore appeal to the 
human mind for their evidence, and to nothing else. By a mental 
process they are transformed from the sphere of feeling or intuition into 
that of logic, and when we appeal to an innate sense for their truth we 
simply appeal to the consciousness of every man to say whether this 
process has not been rightly performed. But the proposition, God 
was incarnate in Jesus Christ for the deliverance of the world, is of a 
totally different nature. It is not an abstract truth, but a historical 
fact, and consequently by no power of intuition could we assure our- 
selves of its truth. However much the fact embodied in these words 
may answer to a want and ldnging in the heart, however much 
the thought of it may thrill our nature to its very depth, still this is 
no proof of its truth. This very want and longing has given rise to 
many pretensions, which, alas ! we know to have been baseless. That 
God was incarnate in Christ Jesus is a fact which must rest upon 
evidence just as any other historical fact. There is no power of clair- 
voyance in the human mind by which we can see its truth indepen- 
dent of evidence. 

" But this writer not only fails to perceive that the Christianity he 
adopts is a historical fact resting upon evidence, but that it is a super- 
natural fact, and consequently, that it needs evidence of a peculiar 
kind. It is evident that to prove that our Lord was Incarnate God 
we need not only evidence that He lived and died, that His life was 
blameless, and that He spake as never man spake, — all this would 
prove that He was wonderful among the sons of men, — but Ave need 
something more before we can acknowledge the justice of His claim 
to be the Son of God. That he was God Incarnate was a fact above 
nature ; it could, therefore, only be proved by a manifestation above 
nature, that is by miracle. 

"This is so important that it merits further consideration. We 
say that the fact that Christ was God being a supernatural fact could 
only be proved by a supernatural manifestation. Now this assertion 
rests upon a fundamental principle of all our knowledge. "We cannot 
know things according to that which they are in themselves, but only 
in and through the phenomena they manifest ; and hence our judg- 
ment as to what anything is, is entirely dependent on the manifesta- 
tions connected with it. How, for instance, do we satisfy ourselves 
as to the nature and identity of anything '\ Supposing a substance is 
presented to a chemist, and he is asked to determine of what nature 
it is, how does he proceed ? He begins by carefully observing all its 
qualities, and noting the phenomena to which it gives rise, in any 
circumstances in which it may be placed. He places it in every pos- 
sible relation, and notes the signs and tokens which are manifested. 
If it should happen that these phenomena are identical with those of 
any previously known substance, the identity of the substance in- 
quired about with that substance is determined. But should the 
phenomena manifested be altogether unknown and strange, it is im- 
mediately set down as a new substance, and the idea we have of that 

N 



194 Note i [Lect. 

substance is constructed out of the phenomena it manifests. In the 
same way the naturalist proceeds in determining the various species 
of plants and animals. He observes not only physical characteristics 
and relations, but, in the case of animals, actions and habits ; and from 
these he is enabled to conclude as to the presence or absence of mind 
and intelligence, and generally as to the inner nature. In the same 
way, by a process of induction, we judge of the characters and mental 
capacities of those among whom we mix. We are in no doubt when 
we are in the presence of a fellow-being with human nature and sym- 
pathies like ourselves. We see his inmost nature manifested in a 
thousand outward tokens, from which we draw an almost instantane- 
ous and infallible conclusion. 

" It is in precisely the same way that we are to judge of the nature 
of Christ. If He exhibited in His words and actions only what was 
human, our unavoidable conclusion must be that He was nothing 
more. Whatever reason we may have for putting faith in His truth 
and goodness, still had He claimed to be the Son of God and ex- 
hibited no sign, we must have supposed that He was under a delusion. 
On the other hand, if in His words and deeds He exhibited tokens 
above man, we might not be able from these tokens, taken by them- 
selves, to conclude that He was God, but we could certainly con- 
clude that in Him was more than man. 

" But the matter may be put in even a stronger light. As we can- 
not know things in themselves, but only in and through their outward 
manifestations, so we cannot think the existence of any being in relation 
with the things of this world without supposing the outward tokens 
under which it is revealed to us. According to this principle, miracles 
are the natural and necessary consequence of the Godhead in Christ, so 
much so that we cannot think Him truly God and imagine them absent. 

" Let us realize to ourselves the circumstances. 

" Supposing the question had been, not whether He transcended, 
but whether He fell short uf, what is human ; every one coming into 
His presence and conversing with Him could easily satisfy himself. 
A hundred outward tokens would reveal the presence of a living 
human soul. But just in the same way would it be evident to those 
around Him that His nature transcended that of man. If He were 
really more than man, there would be some outward token to manifest 
that higher nature. It is utterly impossible that it could be otherwise. 
However much He might hide His glory, still a thousand tokens, 
each transcending what belongs to man, would be visible. His very 
look, His air, the tone of His voice, His wisdom and goodness, His 
more than human knowledge, feeling, and sympathy, all these super- 
tdded to the visible assertion of His authority over nature, would 
combine to point Him out as one more than human. We do not 
know that due weight, in an evidential point of view, has ever been 
given to the astonishing fact that the unanimous verdict of every one 
privileged to come near our Blessed Lord has been that He was more 
than man. In this, friend and enemy, Jew, Ebionite, Christian, 
Gnostic, alike agree. Amid the innumerable theories that for 1S00 



I] 



Note 2 195 



years have been devised to explain the nature of that manifestation 
that took place in Christ, all agree in this, that He was more than man. 
" Miracles are thus the natural and necessary consequence of the 
Godhead in Christ ; so necessary indeed that it is impossible to think 
Him truly God and imagine them absent : just as we cannot think 
man existing without a certain conformation of body, and certain acts 
which are the appropriate expression of humanity, so no more can we 
think the Godhead in Christ without imagining those manifestations 
which are the tokens of God." {Christian Remembrancer, October 1863.) 



NOTE 2, p. 14. 

The moral results of Christianity when they are appealed to as 
evidence, appear more strongly in that light when regarded in con- 
nexion with prophecy, in which connexion Pascal views them : — 

" Prophetie avec l'accomplissement. Ce qui a precede et ce qui a 
suivi J. C. 

" Les riches quittent leur bien, &c. Qu'est-ce que tout cela ? C'est 
ce qui a ete predit si longtemps auparavant. Depuis 2,000 ans aucun 
paien n'avait adore le Dieu des Juifs, et dans le temps predit la foule 
des paiens adore cet unique Dieu. Les temples sont detruits, les rois 
meme se soumettent a la croix. Qu'est-ce que tout cela '? C'est l'esprit 

de Dieu qui est repandu sur la terre Effundam spiritual 

meum. (Joel ii. 28.) Tous les peuples etaient dans l'infid elite et dans 
la concupiscence ; toute la terre fut ardente de charite : les princes 
quittent leurs grandeurs ; les filles souffrent le mar tyre. D'oii vient 
cette force? C'est que le Messie est arrive. Voila l'effet et les 
marques de sa venue." (vol. ii. ed. Fougeres, pp. 273, 277.) 

NOTE 3, p. 17. 

General statements of the evidence of miracles are current in the 
Fathers, who insist upon that argument in their controversies with 
the heathen, as modern apologists do in their defence of Christianity 
against the infidel. Tertullian, e.g., after stating the Eternal Sonship 
and immaculate Conception of our Lord, says: "Recipite interim 
hanc fabulam, similis est vestris, duni ostendimus quomodo CJiristus 

probetur Quern igitur [Judasi] solummodo hominem 

preesumpserant de hu militate, sequebatur uti magum estimarent de 
potestate, cum ille verbo dsemonia de hominibus excuteret, csecos 
reluminaret, leprosos purgaret, paralyticos restringeret, mortuos 
denique verbo redderet vitse, elementa ipse famularet, compescens 
procellas et freta ingrediens, ostendens se esse Logon Dei, i. e. Verbum 
illud primordiale primogenitum." At the moment of His death upon 
the cross,— "Dies, medium orbem signante sole, subducta est. . . 



196 Note 3 [Lect. 

. . . . Eum mundi casum relatum in arcanis vestris habetis." 
The crowning miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension follow, upon 
the strength of which Tertullian says : " Et Caesares credidissent 
super Christo, si ant Caesares non essent seculo necessarii, aut si et 
Christiani potuissent esse Caesares." (Apologeticus, c. 21.) 

Arnobius appeals to the evidence of miracles : " Ergone inquiet 
aliquis, Deus ille est Christus ? Deus responclebimus. Postulabit, 
an se ita res habeat, quemadmodum dicimus, comprobari. Nulla major 
est comprobatio, quam gestarum ab eo fides rerum." He then 
enumerates the Gospel miracles : " Ergo ille mortalis aut unus fuit e 
nobis cujus imperium, cujus vocem, invaletudines morbi, febres, atque 
alia corporum cruciamenta fugiebant ? Unus fuit e nobis qui redire 
in corpora jamdudum animas praecipiebat inflatas ? . . . . Unus 
fuit e nobis qui, deposito corpore innumeris se hominum prompta in 
luce detexit? qui sermonem dedit atque accepit, docuit, castigavit, 
admonuit ? qui ne illi se falsos vanis imaginationibus existimarent, 
semel, iterum, saepius familiari collocutione monstravit." (Adversus 
Gentes, lib. i. c. 42, et seq.) For the truth of the miracles he refers to 
the evidence of testimony : " Sed non creditis gesta haec. Sed qui ea 
conspicati sunt fieri, et sub oculis suis viderunt agi, testes optimi, 
certissimique auctores et crediderunt haec ipsi et credenda posteris 
tradiderunt. ... Sed ab indoctis hominibus et rudibus scripta sunt, 
et idcirco non sunt facili auditione credenda. Vide ne magis haec 
fortior causa sit, cur ilia sint nullis coinquinata mendaciis, mente 
simplici prodita, et ignara lenociniis ampliare." (cc. 54, 58.) 

" Abfuit ergo ab his," says Lactantius, "fingendi voluntas et astutia, 
quoniam rudes fuerunt. Quis posset indoctus apta inter se et 
cohaerentia fingere. Non enim quaestus et commodi gratia religionem 
istam commenti sunt, quippe qui et praeceptis et reipsa earn vitam 
secuti sunt quae et voluptatibus caret, et omnia quae habentur in 
bonis spernit." {Divin. Inst v. 3.) 

Athanasius, in a passage in the " De Incarnatione Verbi," marshals 
the great miracles of our Lord's ministry and life into one long 
evidential array, the conclusion being : ovtws e/c t&v Zpywv dv yvwcrOeiq 
5tl ovk avdpwn-os dWd deov dvvapus Kal \6yos etxrlv 6 ravra ipya£dp.evos. . . . 
Tts IdCov avrov Tots voaovs l&fxevov, ev ah viroKeirai to dvdpdnrivov yevos 

en avdpwtrov Kal ov Qebv riyeiro Tts yap Idwv avrbv dirodidovra to 

\6lttov, oh i] yepeais iviXecxj/e, Kal tov e/c yeveTTJs TvcpXov tovs 6(p6a\piovs dvol- 
yovTa, ovk dv evevarpe tt)V dvdpibirwv viroKeif^evrjv avT$ yeveciv, Kal TaijTtjs 
epai drjficovpybv tovtov koI ttol7]tt]v. (c. i 8.) A modern writer would have 
stated the argument both of Athanasius and Tertullian more accurately, 
and said not that such miracles proved that the worker was the Word, 



I] Note 3 197 

the Son of God, mere men having been Divine agents in miraculous 
operations, but that they were a guarantee to the truth of the declara- 
tion of the worker, if He pronounced Himself to be the Son of God. 

Augustine speaks of miraculous evidence as the evidence upon 
which the Apostles relied in commencing the conversion of the 
world : " Qui enim Christum in carne resurrexisse, et cum ilia in 

coelum ascendisse non viderant, id se vidisse narrantibus 

credebant." (Be Civit. Dei, xxii. 5.) And to the objection why 
miracles were not continued, he answers that miracles were necessary 
at first for the purpose of evidence, but not afterwards : " Necessaria 
fuisse priusquam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus." 
(Ibid. c. 8.) Origen, whose works present a striking mixture of 
obsolete fanciful speculation and intellectual modern criticism, 
meets Celsus with the argument of miracles. " Celsus," he says, 
"unable to deny the miracles of Jesus, calumniates them as 
works of magic ; and I have often had to combat him on this 
ground/' (Contra Cels. lib. ii. s. 48.) He appeals in the spirit of a 
modern writer on evidences to the deep and permanent effects of our 
Lord's Eesurrection upon the Apostles, and the change which took 
place in their whole conduct after this alleged event, as evidence of 
the truth of that event. " The zeal with which they devoted them- 
selves to the work of conversion, encountering every danger, is a 
clear proof of the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus ; for they could 
not have taught with this earnestness had they feigned such an event ; 
they could not have inculcated contempt of death upon others, and 
exemplified it themselves." (Ibid. s. 56.) He observes how few the 
cases of persons raised from the dead in the Gospels are, and that if 
such cases were spurious, there would have been more of them. 
"Qti be /ecu veKpous duiarrj, Kal ovk '£<sti irXdcrpa twv to, evayyeXux. ypaipavruv, 
irapluTaTCU e/c rod, el [xhv nrXdafxa 9)v, iroXXovs dvayeypd<pdcu rods dvaarduras. 

eirel 5' ovk 'dart. TrXdcr/ia irdvv evapid^-qrovs XeX^ai. (Ibid. C 48.) 

Chrysostom uses Origen's argument : " Had Christ not really risen 
from the dead, how do we account for the fact that the Apostles, who 
in their behaviour to Him living had shewn such weakness and 
cowardice that they deserted and betrayed Him, after His death 
shewed such zeal that they laid down their lives for Him?" (In S. 
Ignatium, torn. ii. p. 599.) The Resurrection of Christ, as being His 
own act, not brought about by the instrumentality of another agent, 
visibly acting in His behalf as the medium of the operation of the 
miracle (which was the manner in which the other resurrections 
mentioned in Scripture had taken place), is regarded as in and of 
itself a proof of His Divinity. "His body," says Athanasius, "as 



198 Note 3 [Lect. 

having a common nature with our own, was mortal and died ; hut, 
inasmuch as it was united with the Word, could not incur corruption, 
but on account of the Word of God dwelling in it was incorruptible. In 
the same Body were fulfilled two apparent opposites, both that it 
underwent death, and that death and corruption, by reason of the 

indwelling Word, were abolished Inasmuch as the Word 

could not die, hut was immortal, He assumed a Body that was able 
to die, in order that He might offer it up for the sake of all, and that 
the same Word, by reason of His junction to that Body, might destroy 
him that hath the power of death." (De Incarn. § 20.) Chrysostom 
singles out the peculiarity of the miracle of the Besurrection — 
rb eavrdv tlvo. dvvaadcu avacyr^v. (In Joan. xxiv. torn. viii. p. 1 36.) 

But while the Fathers appealed familiarly to the evidence of 
miracles in behalf of the truth of Christianity, there were particular 
kinds of belief strong in the minds of the Fathers, and of their age, 
which prevented the argument of miracles from assuming in their 
hands the compactness and stringency which it has gained in the 
hands of modern writers on evidence. Of the kinds of belief to which 
I refer, the first was their acceptance to a certain extent of the " dis- 
pensation of Paganism," to use Dr. Newman's phrase (Arians, p. 89), 
and with it of certain miraculous pretensions which Paganism had put 
forth ; the second was their belief in magic. A writer on evidence 
in the present age, in urging the evidence of miracles to the divine 
nature and mission of Christ, is not incommoded by any strong- 
belief existing either in his own mind or in the age, in the reality of 
any supernatural demonstrations outside of the course of miracles 
which constitute the evidences of revelation, and standing in a posi- 
tion of rivalry to them. The Scripture miracles, if proved, thus 
stand alone in his plan of defence as true and admitted miracles, 
and the inference from the truth of the miracles to the truth of the 
doctrines is an unimpeded step, there being no counteracting force in 
the confessed existence of supernatural action under a false religion, 
or from a corrupt and evil power, which has to be allowed and 
accounted for, in drawing the evidential conclusion. But the Fathers 
believed that supernatural powers had been bestowed by Providence 
on various occasions, under Paganism ; and they had also a strong and 
undoubting belief in magic and a diabolical source of scipernatural ex- 
hibitions. The argument of miracles in their hands therefore was an 
obstructed and qualified argument, maintained in conflict with various 
counter admissions ; and the conclusion from it, though undoubting 
and full, was not given in the summary and rigorous form in which 
a popular school of writers on evidence has put it. 



I] Note 3 199 

1. The general attitude of the early Church toward the heathen 
world somewhat differed from that of modern Christendom. The 
doctrine of the Logos under the treatment of the Alexandrian school 
imparted a systematic form and theological basis to a higher estimate 
of Paganism : for in the eye of that school " the dispensation of 
Paganism, so far as it contained truth, was but a lower part of one 
large dispensation, which our Lord, as the Divine Reason, had insti- 
tuted and carried on for the enlightenment of the human race, and of 
which the Gospel was the consummation ; heathens and Christians 
were, though in a different measure, still alike partakers of that 
one ' Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ;' and 
all mankind, as brought into union and fellowship by that common 
participation, formed one religious society and communion — one 
Church." (Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 117.) 

Such a Divine element being recognized in Paganism, the next 
step was that a certain authority was attached by the early Fathers in 
various instances to ancient Pagan legend and traditions of miraculous 
appearances and interpositions. Cases of special Divine interposition 
in the Gentile world are recognized in Scripture. 

" Scripture gives us reason to believe," says Dr. Newman, " that the 
traditions, thus originally delivered to mankind at large, have been 
secretly reanimated and enforced by new communications from the 
unseen world. . . . The book of Genesis contains a record of the dis- 
pensation of natural religion, or paganism, as well as of the patriarchal. 
The dreams of Pharaoh and Abimelech, as of Nebuchadnezzar after- 
wards, are instances of the dealings of God with those to whom He did 
not vouchsafe a written revelation. . . . Let the book of Job be taken 
as a less suspicions instance of the dealings of God with the heathen. 
Job was a Pagan in the same sense in which the Eastern nations are 
Pagans in the present day. He lived among idolaters, yet he and his 
friends had cleared themselves from the superstitions with which the 
true creed was beset : and, while one of them was divinely instructed 
by dreams, he himself at length heard the voice of God out of the 
whirlwind. . . . Scripture, as if for our full satisfaction, draws back 
the curtain further still in the history of Balaam. There a bad man 
and a heathen is made the oracle of true Divine messages. . . . And 
so in the cave of Endor, even a saint was sent from the dead to join 
the company of an apostate king, and the sorceress whose aid he was 
seeking. Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in the notion, 
that there may have been heathen poets and sages, or sibyls again, 
in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through whom 
religious and moral truth was conveyed to their countrymen." 
(Arians, p. 89.) 

But the Fathers went further, and recognized Pagan supernatural 
events as occurring in the common stream of Pagan history, apart 



200 Note 3 [Lect. 

from any connection with or relation to the sacred people. Certain 
Pagan miracles, especially some which occur in Eoman history, had 
gained a respectable place in the works of heathen historians, the 
same list recurs in different Fathers, and Minutius Felix (Odavius, c. 
27), Lactantius (Divin. Inst, lib. ii. c. 8), Tertullian (Apol. c. 22), and 
Augustine (De Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 16), extend a kind of acceptance to 
them. 1 The latter Father exhibits perhaps more of a critical spirit 
than his predecessors, and in touching on the subject of natural 
marvels, especially the existence of certain extraordinary nations 
which was asserted in geographical books of that age, says, " Sed omnia 
genera hominum quae dicuntur esse credere non est necesse." (De 
Civit. Dei, xvi. 8.) He supposes himself pressed by an objector who 
reminds him that if he discredits the marvels of secular writers he 
will have to account for his belief in those of Scripture, but he dis- 
owns the dilemma. " Quod propterea poterunt dicere, ut responclendi 
nobis angustias ingerant : quia si dixerimus, non esse credendum, 
scripta ilia miraculorum infirmabimus ; si autem credendum esse con- 
cesserimus, confirmabimus numina paganorum. Sed nos non habemus 
necesse omnia credere quae continet historia gentium, cum et ipsi inter 
se historici, sicut ait Varro, per multa dissentiant." (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 
6.) Later writers however of reputation have acknowledged Pagan 
miracles ; Dante (De Monarchia, lib. ii. c. 3) ranks certain recorded in 
Roman history as evidences, among other proof, of the divine authority 
of the Roman empire. And even our theologian Jackson entertains 
the idea of supernatural visitations under Paganism. 

1 Such a partial recognition however of Pagan legends and reports of 
supernatural occurrences must be distinguished from the appeals which the 
Fathers sometimes make to heathen mythology, in defence of Christianity 
against heathen objections — appeals which have the force of an argumen- 
tum ad hominem. Thus when heathen opponents taunted the Christians 
with the ignominious death of Him whom they asserted to be the Son of 
God, Justin Martyr encountered them with facts from their own mytho- 
logy — the miserable earthly fates which some of Jove's sons had met — 
' Aa-K\r]7rcbv /cat depawevr^v yevop.evov, Kepavvudivra dva\e\evOevat els ovpavov' 
Aiovvcrov de SiacnrapaxQevTa' 'Hpa/cXea Se (pvyrj irdviov eavrbv irvpl doura. 
Apol. i. 21.) Though he also considers these coarse and fabulous pictures 
of the sufferings of heroism in pagan mythology as an intentional travesty 
of the sufferings and persecutions of the Messiah, inspired by diabolical cun- 
ning, in order to confuse men, and blind them to the notes of the Messiah 
when He came — r& fivdoTroirjdevra inrb rQ>v voirp-Qu airaTrj /cat cnraywyrj rod 
avdpwirelov ye"vovs elprjaOai. awoSelKW/xev tear evepyeiav ruiv <pav\o)v dcupovtav. 
(Apol. i. s. 54.) So Tertullian, in speaking of the Incarnation says, 
" Recipite hanc fabulam ; similis est vestris, dum ostendimus quomodo 
Christus probetur. Sciebant etqui penes vos ejusmodi fabulas cemulas ad 
destractionem veritatis istiusmodi prneministraverunt, venturum esse Chris- 
turn." (Apol. c. xxi.) 



I] 



Note 3 20 1 



" As the end and purpose which Homer assigns for the apparitions 
of his gods, so are both these, and many other particular circumstances 
of his gods assisting the ancient heroics, such as might justly breed 
offence to any serious reader, if a man should avouch them in earnest, 
or seek to persuade him to expect more than mere delight in them. 
Yet I cannot think that he would have feigned such an assistance, 
unless the valour of some men in former times had been extraordinary, 
•md more than natural. Which supernatural excellency in some before 
Dthers, could not proceed but from a supernatural cause. And thus 
far his conceit agrees with Scripture ; that there were more heroical 
spirits in old times than in later, and more immediate directions from 
God for managing of most wars. And from the experience hereof, the 
ancient poets are more copious in their hyperbolical praises of their 
worthies, than the discreeter sort of later poets durst be, whilst they 
wrote of their own times. Not that the ancient were more licentious, 
or less observant of decorum in this kind of fiction than the other ; 
but because the manifestation of a Divine power in many of their 
victories was more seen in ancient than in later times." (Comments 
upon the Creed, bk. i. ch. xi. xii.) 

I quote this passage from Jackson as, though a milder and more 
modified specimen, a specimen in a modern divine of the spirit favour- 
able to Pagan supernatural events in the Fathers. 

2. But the difference between the patristic treatment of the argu- 
ment of miracles, and its treatment in the hands of our own popular 
writers on evidence, is due mainly to another source, viz., the belief of 
the Fathers in magic. The Fathers held the popular ideas of their 
age on this subject, and wrote under a strong and genuine conviction 
that there was such an art as magic, and that it had real powers and 
could produce real supernatural effects ; from which effects they were 
bound to distinguish true miracles, which came from a Divine source 
and were wrought for the proof of a Divine revelation. The class of 
enchanters or wizards — magi,prcestigiatores — did not figure in their eyes 
as the mere creation of legend and fancy, but as a class possessed of 
real powers. The source of these powers was held to be the relation 
in which these persons stood to daemons and evil spirits. The order 
of daemons, their origin, their nature, and the place which they are 
permitted to occupy in the world, are discussed with much more 
boldness and more attempt at accuracy and detail in patristic theology 
than in modern ; and the early writers introduce, in addition to the 
Scripture notices of devils, the material of tradition and the theories of 
Alexandrian Platonism. Augustine {Be Civ. Dei, viii. 14 et seq.) com- 
ments upon Porphyry's division of the rational universe, which was 
the Platonic one : " Omnium inquiunt animalium, in quibus est anima 
rationalis, tripartita divisio est, in Deos, homines, daemones. Dii 



202 Note 3 [Lect. 

excelsissimum locum tenent, homines infimum, daemones medium. 
Nam deorum sedes in coelo est, liominum in terra, in aere daemonum." 
(c. 14.) Augustine does not object to the existence of an order of 
daemons so situated, but only to the Platonic inference from it : " Jam 
vero de loci altitudine, quod dsemones in aere, nos autem habitamus in 
terra, ita permoveri ut hinc eos nobis esse praeponendos existimemus, 
omnino ridiculum est. Hoc enim pacto nobis et omnia volatilia 
praeponimus." (Ibid. c. 15.) He identifies these daemons with the 
evil spirits of Scripture. Tertullian's language is : " Itaque corporibus 
quidem et valetudines infligunt [daemones] et aliquos casus acerbos, 
animae vero repentinos et extraordinarios per vim excessus. Suppetit 
illis ad utramque substantiam hominis adeundam mira subtilitas et 
tenuitas sua." (Apol. c. 22.) Minutius Felix acquiesces in the 
Platonic assertion of an intermediate class of beings : " Substantiam 
inter mortalem immortalemque, i. e. inter corpus et spiritum, mediam, 
terreni ponderis etcoelestis levitatis admixtione concretam;" which he 
identifies with the devils of Scripture (Octavius, c. 26). Lactantius 
adopts a tradition : " Cum ergo numerus hominum ccepisset increscere 
.... misit Deus angelos ad tutelam cultumque generis humani, 
quibus quia liberum arbitrium erat datum, praecepit ante omnia ne 
terrae contagione maculati, substantias ccelestis amitterent dignitatem. 
.... Itaque illos cum hominibus commorantes dominator ille terrae 
fallacissimus [the devil, who according to Lactantius had fallen from 
envy of the Son of God previously to the creation of these angels, c. 9] 
consuetudine ipsa paulatim ad vitia pellexit, et mulierum congressibus 
inquinavit. Turn in coelum ob peccata non recepti ceciderunt ad 
terrain. Sic eos Diabolus ex angelis Dei suos fecit satellites." (Divin. 
Inst, lib. ii. c. 15.) 

To this order of daemons, which the Platonists revered, but which 
the Fathers identified with the lost spirits of Scripture, both Christian 
and heathen writers in common assigned the authorship of the super- 
natural effects produced by magic. " Apuleius," says Augustine, 
" ascribes to these the divinations of the augurs and soothsayers, the 
foresight of prophets and dreams, and also the miracles of wizards" 
(miracula magorum). (De Civ. Dei, viii. 16.) Tertullian attributes the 
responses of the heathen oracles and other Pagan channels of prophecy, 
as well as the miracles of magic, to the same source. " Omnis spiritus 
ales est : hoc angeli et daemones : igitur momento ubique sunt : totus 
orbis illis locus unus est : quod ubique generatur tarn facile sciunt 
quam enuntiant, velocitas divinitas creditur, quia substantia ignoratur, 
.... Porro ct magi phantasmata edunt .... multa miracula cir- 
culatoriis praestigiis ludunt, habtntes daemonum assistentem sibi 



I] 



Note 3 203 



potestatem." (Apol. cc. 22, 23.) Justin Martyr (Ajpol. lib. i. s. 5), 
Irenseus {Contra Hozr. ii. c. 32), Lactantius (Divin. Inst. lib. ii. c. 15) use 
the same language. So too Minutius Felix : " Magi quoque non 
tantum sciunt daemonas, sed etiam quicquid miraculi ludunt, per 
deemonas faciunt ; illis adspirantibus et infundentibus." (Octavius, 
c. 26.) So too Augustine : " Addimus etiam et humanarum et magi- 
caium, id est per homines deemonicarum artium, et ipsorum per 
seipsos daemonum multa miracula." (Be Civ. Dei, xxi. 6.) And he 
argues for the reality of true or divinely- wrought miracles from the 
fact of these miracles of inferior and diabolical origin : " Quamobrem 
si tot et tanta mirifica Dei creatura utentibus humanis artibus fiunt, 
ut ea qui nesciunt opinentur esse divina : si magorum opera, quos 
nostra Scriptura veneficos et incantatores vocat, in tantum dsemones 

extollere potuerunt quanto magis Deus potens est facere quae 

inndelibus sunt incredibilia." (Ibid.) Origen accounts for the power 
of magicians, by the help partly of his mysterious theory of words, 
which he applies to this subject, intimating that a power is exerted 
over daemons by the knowledge and utterance of their true names, in 
the language of their own appropriate regions : Atb nal dvvarai ravra 
to. ovofiara Xeyo/xeva fierd twos rod crv/x<pvovs avrois dpfioij' dWa d£ /card, 
klyvKTlav (pepd/xeva (poivrjv, iirl tivQu daifxSvoiv t&v rdde fidva hwa/xivoiv, 

teal aXXa /card rr\v HepcrCov dcdXeKTOV iwl dWcov dwafi^cou "Ort 

ol irepl tt]U XPV <TLV T & v fTrySwi' dewol laTopovaLV, 6'n rty dirty iirwdty 
elirdura fikv ry oliceLa dta\iKT(p, £o~tiv iuepyrjaai Sirep eir ayyeWerai r\ eirui§7) 
(Contra Cels. lib. i. s. 24, 25. J ) 

Such being the belief of the Fathers in the reality of magic, a 
belief which they expressed either with simplicity or with ingenious 
and philosophical additions, according to the character of the writers, 
how did they distinguish true miracles wrought in evidence of a 
Divine communication from the supernatural results of magic ? They 
had different modes of meeting this objection, and establishing the 
Divine source of the Gospel miracles. They appealed to the greatness, 
majesty, and sublimity of the latter, which were of such a kind that 
no magic had ever professed to produce anything like them. Our 
Lord's Resurrection especially was regarded as intrinsically a Divine 
act, being, as it was, a miracle sui generis, not wrought by any interme- 

1 Professor Blunt, in his " Lectures on the Early Fathers," has a note 
upon this theory of names put forth by Origen ; in which, however, he 
erroneously supposes the theory to be connected in Origen's meaning with 
Christian exorcism, and the exertion of miraculous powers within the 
Church, whereas Origen is not speaking of Christian miracles, but of heathen 
and Jewish magic, and only proposes the theory in that connection. 
(Blunt, p. 399.) 



204 Note 3 [Lect. 

cliate agent, any person intervening between the Invisible Supernatural 

Power and the subject of that power, but wrought by our Lord Him- 
self upon Himself : Himself in death restoring Himself to life. (See 
below, p. 197.) "Magicians," says Chrysostom, speaking even of the 
miracles of our Lord's ministry, " have wrought miracles, but not 
such miracles" — ydr]Te$ (nj/xe'ia iroiovai, d\X' ov roiaura iroioicn. <jr}[j.€lcL. 
(torn. xii. p. 32.) " Potestis aliquern nobis designare," says Arnobius, 
" monstrare ex omnibus illis magis qui unquam fuere per secula, 
consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fecerit V (Adv. 
Gentes, lib. L c. 43.) The manner and mode in which Christ wrought 
His miracles, without any of the low forms and fantastic utterances 
and repetitions of magic, by a simple word or touch, is also observed. 
" We may also with St. Irenseus 1 observe," says Barrow, "that Jesus, 
in performing His cures and other miraculous works, did never use 
any profane, silly, fantastic ceremonies ; any muttering of barbarous 
names or insignificant phrases ; any invocation of spirits, or inferior 
powers ; any preparatory purgations, any mysterious circumstances 
of proceeding, apt to amuse people ; any such unaccountable methods 
or instruments as magicians, enchanters, diviners, circulatorious 
jugglers and such emissaries of the devil, or self-seeking impostors, 
are wont to use ; but did proceed altogether in a most innocent, 
simple, and grave manner, with a majestic authority and clear sin- 
cerity, becoming such an agent of God as He professed Himself to 
be.'' (Vol. v. p. 205.) 

But the great token by which the Fathers distinguished the miracles 
of the Gospel, those supernatural works which bore witness to our 
Lord's Divine mission, from the miracles produced by thaumaturgy 
and the power of inferior spirits, was the evidence of prophecy. The 
body of miracles which testified to our Lord as the Messiah, coincided 
and fitted in with a whole series of prophetical indications which had 
commenced with the beginning of things, i.e. with the fall of the first 
man, and had been sustained continuously almost to the very advent 
of our Lord. From the first page of the old Testament to the last a 
constant promise was held out of the coming of One who should redeem 
mankind — a Great Deliverer who should save His people from their 
sins, and plant a new dispensation, a Divine kingdom in the world. 
It was evident that when this great Personage, so long pointed out 
by prophecy, came, there must be tokens by which He could be re- 
cognised as the person who was meant by such prophecy, who was the 
true Messiah, to whom all these intimations belonged. When there- 
fore a Personage appeared who claimed to be the Messiah, who an- 
1 Contra Haer. ii. 5S. 



I] 



Note 3 205 



nounced Himself as the Head of this new kingdom in the world, — 
One whose whole life and teaching corresponded to that pretension, 
and who moreover authenticated His character and mission by the 
most remarkable and astonishing miracles : such an exhibition of 
miraculous power must plainly in reason be looked upon not simply 
in itself, but also in connection with that constant voice of prophecy 
which had heralded the approach of a Messiah. Here was a coinci- 
dence — a Great Personage with, an extraordinary mission had been 
predicted, One who professed to be this Great Personage had come, 
bringing the testimony of miracles to the truth of His announcement. 
Such a miraculous demonstration, therefore, could net be regarded in 
the same light as that in which a sudden and unlooked-for outbreak 
of supernatural power would be, some wonderful outburst which 
came isolated and disconnected with all circumstances preceding 
it ; but must be contemplated in conjunction with the antecedent 
posture of things and the antecedent course of revelation. The 
miracles fulfilled prophecy ; prophecy therefore was a guarantee to the 
miracles. It was a security for their Divine source — that they really 
were tokens from God. The two, as in every case of coincidence, 
confirmed each other. This was the great distinction then which in 
the eyes of the Fathers separated the Gospel miracles in character 
from those miracles which magic and diabolical power could produce. 
Magic might achieve extraordinary effects for the moment and at the 
moment, but it could not create the long antecedent flow of prophecy, 
the long expectancy of revelation, the intimations of the Divine Oracle 
from the beginning of things, the foreshadowings and anticipations 
which had from the first signified the approach of a Messiah, and had 
been the standing oracle in the heart of the holy nation, and, in a 
sense, of mankind. The idea was that miracles, to have their proper 
effect as evidence, must not be a mere present exhibition, but that 
they must have a root in the past, that they must be the fulfilment 
of and carry out some great antecedent plan and promise, that they 
must fit in with the course of the Divine dispensation, and that they 
must testify to some truth which had already an incipient place in 
the authorized religion. 

Such is the current answer of the Fathers by which they meet the 
objection of magic — prophecy. " Should any one object to us," says 
Justin Martyr, " that Christ wrought His miracles by magic, we refer 
him to the Prophets." (Apol. i. 30.) " If," says Ireneeus, " they say 
that the Lord wrought these wonders by illusion — 4>avTa<jLU)5&s — we 
refer them to the prophetical writings, from which we shall shew 
that all these things were predicted of Him." (Contra Hair. lib. ii. c. 



206 Note 3 [Lect. 

32.) " Celsus," says Origen, " asserts that i±" we are asked why we 
believe Jesus to be the Son of God, we reply that He healed the 
lame and the blind, whereas he himself attributes these works to 
magic. I answer that we hold Jesus to be the Son of God on account 
of these miracles, but on account of them as having been foretold by 
the prophets." {Contra Cels. lib. ii. s. 48.) " Know," says Lactan- 
tius, " that Christ is believed by us to be God, not only on account 
of His miracles, but because we see in Him all those things accom- 
plished which were announced by the Prophets. He wrought 
miracles : we might have thought Him a magician as ye think Him, 
and as the Jews did, if all the Prophets had not with one mouth fore- 
told that He would do those very things. Therefore we believe Him 
to be God, not more from His wonderful deeds than from the Cross 
itself, because that was foretold. Nor therefore do we repose faith in 
His divinity on account of His own testimony, but on account of the 
testimony of the Prophets, who long before predicted what He would 
do and suffer ; — a kind of proof which cannot belong to Apollonius, 
or Apuleius, or any of the magicians." {Divin. Inst. lib. v. c. 3.) 
Augustine takes his stand upon miracles and prophecy together : 
" Exceptis enim tot et tantis miraculis, quae persuaserunt Deum es^e 
Christum, prophetiae quoque Divinae fide dignissimae praecesserunt, 
quae in illo, non sicut a patribus adhuc creduntur implendae, sed jam 
demonstrantur impletae." {Be Civ. Dei, xxii. 6.) 

Jackson represents with tolerable fidelity the patristic view : — 
" By Christ's miracles alone considered, they vjere not bound abso- 
lutely to believe He was the Messias, but by comparing them with other 
circumstances, or presupposed truths, especially the Scripture's received 
and approved prophecies of the Messias : though no one for the greatness 
of power manifested in it could of itself, yet the frequency of them at 
that time, and the condition of the parties on whom they were 
wrought, might absolutely confirm John and his disciples ; because 
such they were in these and every respect, as the evangelical prophet 

had foretold Messias should work Such signs and wonders 

might be wrought by seducers If any man say to you, Lo, here 

is CJirist, or Lo, He is there ; believe it not : for false Christs shall arise, 
and false prophets, and shall shew signs and wonders, to deceive, if ii 
were possible, the very elect. And possible it was to have deceived even 
these, if it had been possible for these not to have tried their wonders 
by the written word." {Comments on the Creed, bk. iii. ch. 20.) 

It was this sense and deep estimate of the value of prophecy, as evi- 
dence of the Messiah, and as a voucher for the Divine design in, 
and the authentic nature of the miraculous evidence accompanying 
Him, that sent the Fathers into the region of heathen prophecy, to 
discover and collect the scattered traces of that wider and earlier reve- 



1] 



Note 3 207 



lation which had from the first shadowed forth this mighty Person, 
and had spread dimly and irregularly from the fountain-head of 
prophecy. Their idea was to carry the evidence of a Messiah back aa 
far as possible — back into the infancy of time, and into the first dawn 
of inspiration ; not only that inspiration which had been reposited in 
the sacred books, but that also which had travelled out of the sacred 
line of testimony into the world at large, and scattered itself with the 
ramifications and migrations of the human race : it was to connect the 
Messiah with the first forecast of the future which had been imparted 
to mankind, and with a great prophetic wish which had thus from 
the first seated itself in the heart of mankind. Thus the Sibylline 
prophecies, which contained as interpreted by Virgil the original ele- 
ment of a great anticipation, but which had become corrupted by inter- 
polations, were appealed to by the Fathers with the interest and 
fondness of writers who delighted to see the expectation of a Messiah 
rooted in the mind of the human race. (See Augustine, Be Civ. Dei, 
xviii. 23 ; Lactantius, Divin. Inst i. 6 ; iv. 6, 15.) 

" It was a sound and healthy feeling/' says Neander, " that induced 
the apologists of Christianity to assume the existence of a prophetic 
element, not in Judaism alone, but also in Paganism ; and to make 
appeal to this, as the apostle Paul at Athens, in proclaiming the God 
of revelation, appealed to the presentiment of the unknown God in the 
immediate consciousness of mankind, and to those forms in which 
this consciousness had been expressed by the words of inspired poets. 
Christianity, in truth, is the end to which all development of the 
religious consciousness must tend, and of which, therefore, it cannot 
do otherwise than offer a prophetic testimony. Thus there dwells 
an element of prophecy not barely in revealed religion, unfolding 
itself beneath the fostering care of the divine vintager (John xv.) as it 
struggles onward from Judaism to its complete disclosure in Chris- 
tianity ; but also in religion as it grows wild on the soil of Paganism, 
which by nature must strive unconsciously towards the same end. 
But the apologists .... allowed themselves to be imposed upon by 
spurious and interpolated matter. 

" Thus, for instance, there weTe interpolated writings of this descrip- 
tion passing under the name of that mythic personage of antiquity, 
the Grecian Hermes (Trismegistus) or the Egyptian Thoth ; also 
under the names of the Persian Hystaspes (Gushtasp), and of the 
Sibyls, so celebrated in the Greek and Roman legends, which were 
used in good faith by the apologists. Whatever truth at bottom 
might be lying in those time-old legends of the Sibylline prophecies, of 
which the profound Heraclitus, five hundred years before Christ, had 
said, ' Their unadorned, earnest words, spoken with inspired mouth, 
reached through a thousand years ; ; the consciousness of such a pro- 
phetic element in Paganism, that which in these predictions was sup- 
posed to refer to the fates of cities and nations, and more particularly 



208 Note 3 [Lect. 

to a last and golden age of the world, gave occasion to divers interpreta- 
tions taken from Jewish and Christian points of view." (Church 
History, vol. i. p. 240.) 

Lactantius claims the tribute of contemporary oracles to our Lord, 
and reports the response of the " Milesian Apollo" to the question 
whether Christ was " God or man " — dwqrbs 'i-qv Kara <rdpi<a, k.t.X. (Divin. 
Inst. iv. 13.) The patristic feeling is again represented by Jackson : — 

" Plutarch's relation of his demoniacal spirits mourning for great 
Pan's death, about this time, is so strange, that it might perhaps seem 
a tale, unless the truth of the common bruit had been so constantly 
avouched by ear-witnesses unto Tiberius, that it made him call a 
convocation of wise men, as Herod did at our Saviour's birth, to re- 
solve him who this great Pan, late deceased, should be. Thamous, 
the Egyptian master (unknown by that name to his passengers, until 
he answered to it at the third call of an uncouth voice, uttered sine 
authore from the land, requesting him to proclaim the news of great 
Pan's death, as he passed by Palodes), was resolved to have let all 
pass as a fancy or idle message, if the wind and tide should grant 
him passage by the place appointed ; but the wind failing him on a 
sudden, at his coming thither, he thought it but a little loss of 
breath to call out aloud unto the shore, as he had been requested,, 
' Great Pan is dead.' The words, as Plutarch relates, were scarce out 
of his mouth before they were answered with a huge noise, as it had 
been of a multitude, sighing and groaning at this wonderment. 
. . . The circumstance of the time will not permit me to doubt, 
but that under the known name of Pan was intimated the great 
Shepherd of our souls." (Comments on the Creed, bk. i. ch. 10.) 

But because prophecy was in the judgment of the Fathers wanted 
to guarantee the Divine source of miracles, and give them their 
proper effect as evidence, it is not to be considered that the Fathers 
superseded the intrinsic force of miracles, and merged it in prophecy. 
Each of these kinds of evidence, in their view, stood in need of the 
other ; miracles to shew who was the object of prophecy, prophecy 
to mark the Divine character of the miracles ; but neither of these 
was regarded as sufficient without the other. It was not supposed 
that prophecy of itself would be enough to point out the Messiah to 
the world upon His arrival, and give mankind a justification for 
fixing upon a particular individual as being that great Personage. 
For how does the case stand ? A mighty Deliverer and Eedeemer of 
mankind from sin and death is announced beforehand, but how is 
He known when He does come 1 His office is principally mysterious 
and supernatural, and does not bear witness to itself. The circum- 
stance therefore that One who will fulfil this office is predicted does 
not supersede the necessity of some adequate marks and signs at the 
time to indicate who the predicted Person is, and distinguish Him 



I] Note 3 209 

when He arrives from others. And the natural mark of such a Per- 
sonage is miraculous power. This in the idea of the Fathers is 
wanted then to point out at the time " the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world," as prophecy is wanted to mark that mira- 
culous power as divinely bestowed and indicative of the Divine will. 
Prophecy announced beforehand that such a Personage would come ; 
the signs by which He would be recognized, when He did come, must 
depend upon other considerations, viz. what are the natural and 
adequate evidences of such a Personage, His character and mission. 
This is a question of judgment and reason, with which prophecy has 
nothing to do. Prophecy in proclaiming Him beforehand implies that 
He will be known and distinguishable upon His arrival ; which im- 
plies that He will be accompanied at the time by sufficient evidences . 
but prophecy does not settle what those evidences are, much less does 
it supersede the need of them. 

The patristic structure of evidence was indeed, like the modern, a 
mixed one, consisting of different materials — prophecy, miracles ; the 
remarkable peculiarity of the spread of Christianity in the world, 
that it ascended from the lower classes of society to the upper, and 
not by the reverse process ; and that the new religion was first pro < 
mulgated by rude men unacquainted with learning and rhetoric, and 
gained ground by the force of persuasion, amid persecution and dis- 
couragement, in spite of torture and death ; the moral result of Chris- 
tianity, that it converted men from the lowest sensuality to the 
practice of virtue and piety, and wherever it had been received had 
wrought a wonderful change in the habits of mankind. The patristic 
argument consisted of all these considerations, only not collected into 
the compact body of statement which modern writers have produced, 
but given out as each point happened to suggest itself to the writer's 
mind, and occurring often in the midst of other and extraneous matter. 
Even the professed Apologetic treatises of the ancients are deficient in 
plan and method. But the materials of the modern treatises on 
evidence are there ; and with the direct proof?, of Christianity the 
collateral also appear. " Ineruditos liberalibua disciplinis, et omnino, 
quantum ad istorum doctrinas attinet, impolitos, non peritos gram- 
matica, non armatos, dialectica, non rhetorica inflates, piscatores 
Christus cum retibus fidei ad mare hujus seculi paucissimos misit." 
(Augustine, I)e Civit. Dei, xxii. 5.) Lactantius appeals to the rude- 
ness and simplicity of the first promulgators of the Gospel as evidence 
of the genuineness and sincerity of their own belief in the facts which 
they reported (Div. Inst. v. 3), to the progress of the faith under per- 
secution (Ibid. v. 1 3), to the virtues of Christians, especially their 





210 Note 3 [Lect. 

humility and " equity/' i.e. their all looking upon themselves as equal 
in the sight of God, and the rich and great among them lowering them- 
selves to the level of the poor : — " Dicet aliquis, Nonne sunt apud vos, 
alii pauperes, alii divites ; alii servi, alii domini ? Nonne aliquid inter 
singulos interest 1 Nihil : nee aha causa est cur nobis invicem fratrum 
nomen impertiamus, nisi quia pares esse nos credimus." (v. 16.) 
Origen retorts upon Celsus the taunt of the lowly birth and parentage 
of Jesus, and draws an argument for the Gospel from the circum- 
stance of our Lord's surmounting such obstacles : he draws attention 
to the rapid spread of His doctrine, the comprehensive power by 
which it has drawn over to itself wise and unwise, Greek and bar- 
barian, the violent persecutions it enabled them to endure, the difficult 
moral virtues which it enabled them to practise. {Contra Gels. L 27 et 
seq.) The success of Christianity, that it had gained ground, that it was 
believed by such a large part of the world, — this matter-of-fact argu- 
ment has a place in the patristic evidences : " Nemo Apollonium pro 
Deo colit," says Lactantius (Div. Inst. v. 3). This argument has even 
more of a place than might have been expected at that early stage of 
the progress of Christianity ; and even before Augustine talked of 
the conversion of the " world," which when the Eoman Empire was 
gained he might colourably do, Origen boasted of the " world's " 
subjugation to the Gospel — <hs viK7\<sai. 6\ov Kocrfxov avrcp £iri(3ov\euovTa 
(Contra Cels. i. 3). 

Indeed, Augustine rhetorically pushes the argument of the success 
of the Gospel to such an extent that he appears at first to assert that 
that success of itself is evidence enough of the truth of Christianity, 
and that besides the miracle of this success no other miracle is wanted. 
' Si vero per Apostolos Christi, ut eis crederetur, Eesurrexionem atque 
Ascensionem prsedicantibus Christi, etiam ista miracula 1 facta esse 
non credunt ; hoc nobis unum grande rniraculum sufficit, quod earn ter- 
rarum orbis sine ullis miraculis credidit." (De Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. c. 5.) 
But when we examine Augustine's argument we find that what he 
asserts is not that Christianity is independent of the evidence of 
miracles, but that the evidence of the miracles is so strong and over- 
whelming that the fact of their falsehood, in spite of this evidence, 
would be more extraordinary than the fact of their truth. He is 
arguing for the doctrine of the resurrection of the body against the 

1 ' ' Ista miracula " alludes in Augustine's argument to the miracles of 
the Apostles, by which they confirmed their testimony to our Lord's Eesur- 
rection and Ascension. " If you do not believe in these miracles," he 
says, " you have to believe in as great a miracle, the belief in the Eesur- 
rection without them. " The special allusion, however, to the Apostolic 
miracles is not necessary to the argument. 



I] Note 3 



21 I 



heathen philosophers who thought it incredible : " Sed videlicet 
homines docti atque sapientes acute sibi argumentari videntur 
contra corporum resurrexionem." {Be Civ. Dei, xxii. 4.) And against 
this notion of the incredibility of the resurrection of the body, he 
urges the fact of our Lord's bodily resurrection. This fact, he says, 
is now accepted by the whole world. " Sed incredibile fuerit ali- 
quando : ecce jam credidit mundus sublatum terrenum Christi corpus 
in coelum, resurrectionem carnis et ascensionem." (c. 5.) But that the 
whole world, he says, should believe that a thing intrinsically incredible 
has taken place is itself incredible. He thus reduces the philosophers 
to the dilemma that they must believe something incredible, either 
the incredible fact itself or the incredible belief in it ; and therefore that 
the apparent incredibility of the miracle of Christ's Resurrection is 
no reason against it. The argument is rhetorical and not a rigid 
specimen of evidential reasoning ; but what the argument aims at is 
the proof of the truth of the miracle of our Lord's Resurrection, not 
the conclusion of the truth of Christianity being independent of that 
miracle. " Si rem incredibilem crediderunt, videant quam sint 
stolidi [the heathen sceptics against whom he is arguing] qui non cre- 
dunt : si autem res incredibilis credita est, etiam hoc utique incredi- 
bile est sic creditum esse quod incredibile est." (Ibid.) Why should 
the resurrection of the body and the particular resurrection of our 
Lord's body be disbelieved as incredible, when if we disbelieve that 
we must believe something else which is quite as incredible. We 
meet the same argument in Chrysostom : U6dev rb a&owiaTov 'i<rx ov > 
ftirep yap %(pdr}V elTrCov, el (yqixeioiv %w/)ts '^ireicrav, irdXXcp fxel^ov rb dadjxa 
(palverai. (Horn. vi. in Cor. torn. x. p. 45.) 

So again Augustine says (Contra Ep. Manichcei, c. 5) — "Ego vero 
Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicge ecclesiae commoveret auc- 
toritas," — which some might interpret to mean that he accepted the 
Gospel upon the testimony of the Church solely, and did not require 
the proof of miracles. But Thorndike in commenting on this 
passage distinguishes between two functions and capacities of the 
Church, one false, the other true ; one, according to which the Church 
was an infallible asserter, and her assertion enough ; the other, accord- 
ing to which the Church was a body of men witnessing to the trans- 
mission of certain doctrines and scriptures, upon certain evidence ; 
witnessing, i.e. to the evidence of those credenda, as well as to the 
credenda themselves — such evidence being principally miracles. 
This is Thorndike's fundamental distinction in treating of the autho- 
rity of the Church and the inspiration of Scripture — his answer to the 
dilemma, to which the Roman divines profess to reduce us upon the 



212 Note 3 [Lect. 

latter question, urging that we receive the inspiration of Scripture 
upon the authority of the Church ; and that therefore we stand com- 
mitted to the principle of the authority of the Church in the fact of 
our belief in the Bible. We do, is Thorndike's reply, but not to the 
authority of the Church as an infallible asserter, but as a body 
witnessing to the transmission of certain evidence for the inspir- 
ation of Scripture, contained in Apostolic history, — viz. the assertion 
of their own inspiration by the Apostles, attested by miracles. He 
explains then Augustine's statement in accordance with this dis- 
criminating view. " The question is whether the authority of the 
Church as a corporation would have moved St. Augustine to believe 
the Gospel because they held it to be true ; or the credit of the Church 
as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons 
which the Gospel tenders, why we ought to believe." (Principles of 
Christian Truth, bk. i. ch. iii.) 

The Fathers indeed assign other inferior uses to miracles besides 
the most important purpose of evidence ; such as those of exciting 
and stimulating, awakening men from the torpor of custom ; and in 
the light of this advantage they speak of miracles as an accommoda- 
tion to human weakness. Thus Augustine : " Quamvis itaque 
miracula visibilium naturarum videndi assiduitate viluerunt, tamen 
cum ea sapienter intueamur inusitatissimis rarissimisque majora sunt. 
Nam et omni miraculo quod fit per hominem majus miraculum est 
homo. Quapropter Deus qui fecit visibilia, ccelum et terram, non 
dedignatur facere visibilia miracula in ccelo et terra quibus ad se invisi- 
bilem colendum excitet animum adhuc visibilibus deditum." {Be Civ. 
Dei, x. 13.) Chrysostom looks upon miracles in the same light, 
when he accounts for the cessation of the gift of tongues by remarking 
that Christians of that later day did not need such wonders to move 
their faith. " Tongues, as Paul saith, are for a sign not to them 
that believe, but to them that believe not. Ye see that God has re- 
moved this sign, not to disgrace but to honour you ; designing to shew 
that your faith does not depend upon tokens and signs." (torn, ii, p. 464.) 

In this light too the Fathers would seem to view miracles, when 
they join the current miracles of their own age to those of Scripture 
in the evidential office. The Fathers assert uno ore that miracles 
had then ceased ; yet they speak of miracles taking place in the 
Church then, and even of these miracles witnessing in a sense to the 
truth of the Gospel. "We must reconcile these two conflicting state- 
ments by supposing that they recognized certain powers working in 
and events taking place in the Church, which, though not rising up 
to the level of the miracles of Scripture, still shewed extraordinary 



I] 



Note 3 213 



Divine action, and in the degree in which they did possessed an evi- 
dential function, and kept alive the faith of the Church. " Christian 
doctrine," says Origen, " has its proper proof in the demonstration, 
as the Apostle says, of the Spirit and of power ; of the Spirit in 
prophecy, of power in the miracles which Christians could then 
work, and of which the vestiges still remain among those who live 
according to the Christian precepts — tx v V '^ TL <r&fc<rdai." (Contra Cels. 
lib. i. s. 2.) " It is a magnificent act of Jesus, that even to this day 
those whom He wills are healed in His name." (Ibid. ii. 33.) Ire- 
naeus, after asserting that our Lord's miracles were verified by pro- 
phecy, which shewed Him to be the Son of God, adds, " Wherefore 
in His name His true disciples now perform deeds of mercy :" he 
mentions exorcisms, cures, &c. (Contra Har. ii. 32.) " That Jesus," 
says Justin Martyr, " was made man for the sake of the believers, and 
for the subversion of daemons, is manifest from what is done before your 
eyes all over the world ; when those who are vexed by daemons, 
whom your own enchanters could not cure, are healed by our Chris- 
tians abjuring and casting out the daemons in the name of Jesus." 
(Apol. ii. s. 6.) " si audire eos velles," says Cyprian, " quando a 

nobis adjurantur et torquentur Yidebis nos rogari ab eis quos 

tu rogas, timeri ab eis quos tu times." (Ad Demetr. xv.) Augustine, 
speaking of the miracles attributed to the interference of the martyrs, 
says, " Cui nisi huic fidei attestantur ista miracula in qua praedicatur 
Christus resurrexisse in carne, et in coelum ascendisse in carne ? 
Quia et ipsi martyres, . . . pro ista fide mortui sunt, qui haec a 
Domino impetrare possunt, propter cujus nomen occisi sunt." (Z><; 
Civ. Dei, xxii. 9.) 

I have endeavoured to state the patristic use of the evidence of 
miracles, and the characteristics by which it was distinguished from 
the modern popular argument. With respect, however, to the 
Fathers' appeal to this evidence, it must be remembered that their 
recognition of the evidential value of miracles, and of the need of 
them to attest the truth of the Divine nature and office of our Lord, 
is seen more as a great assumption underlying the whole fabric of 
patristic reasoning on this subject, than as anything formally expressed 
and developed in statement. The Fathers undoubtedly made deduc- 
tions from the force of miracles as evidence ; but that the person of the 
Messiah and Son of God who came to be the Mediator between God 
and man, and to atone by His death for the sins of the whole world, 
would, when He came, be known and distinguished wholly without 
any miraculous element in His birth, life, or death, simply living in 
and passing through the world in that respect like an ordinary man 



2 r 4 Note 3 [Lect. 

— was an idea which never even occurred to the mind of any Father, 
and which, had it been presented to him, he would have at once dis- 
carded. The ancients, in their whole representation of the evidence 
of Christ's nature and supernatural office — the evidence that He was 
what He professed to be, the only -begotten Son of God, the Lamb of 
God that took away the sin of the world — assumed the great miracles 
of His Birth, Eesurrection and Ascension ; the Creed was used not only 
as a statement of our Lord's Divine character, but as the proof of it as 
well. Christ as a superhuman Personage, the Head of a supernatural 
dispensation, must be known from other men by some adequate marks 
of distinction : the Fathers always took for granted that that dis- 
tinction must be by means of something miraculous : that where there 
was an invisible supernatural, which it was necessary to believe, the 
sign and token of it would be the visible supernatural. The Creed 
stated this miraculous proof, so far as it attached to the person of our 
Lord — His Birth, Eesurrection, and Ascension. The Creed was thus 
in essence a defence as well as an assertion of our Lord's supernatural 
character — a defence of it upon miraculous grounds. In the very 
act of worshipping Jesus Christ, the Fathers indeed assumed the 
miraculous evidence of who Jesus Christ was ; for to worship a person 
w~ho had lived and died like an ordinary man, with however excellent 
gifts endowed, was an idea which they could not have conceived ; the 
miraculous testimony to His own assertion of His nature was taken 
for granted in the simple prayer, " Son of David, have mercy 
upon us." 

" The facts of Christianity," says Archdeacon Lee, " are represented 
by some as forming no part of its 'essential doctrines ; ' they rank, it is 
argued, no higher than its ' external accessories.' It is impossible to 
maintain this distinction. In the Christian revelation the fact of the 
Eesurrection is the cardinal doctrine, the doctrine of the Incarnation 
is the fundamental fact. Christianity exhibits its most momentous 
truths as actual realities, by founding them upon an historical basis, 
and by interweaving them with transactions and events which rest 
upon the evidence of sense." (On Miracles, p. 5.) 

Let us beware, in conclusion, of depreciating the groundwork of 
Christian evidence laid clown by the Fathers, because these ancient 
writers entertained some points of belief relating to the class of inferior 
spirits and the art of Magic which are not accepted at the present day. 
Such partial thaumaturgic pretensions as the art of Magic displayed, 
even could we suppose them real, would not interfere with the 
proper force of the miraculous evidences of the Gospel ; nor therefore 
was the belief in them inconsistent with a true insight into Christian 



I] Note 4 215 

evidence. Nor must we forget that the most indiscrim mating belief in 
magic and witchcraft continued up to very recent times in the Chris- 
tian world. The divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
whether English or Continental, must have been singularly removed 
from the prejudices and ideas of their times if they were not more or 
less under the influence of the belief in these powers. 1 Yet we should 
justly complain if upon this ground any one refused to allow those 
divines the credit of being able to weigh Christian evidence. Jackson, 
Hammond, Thorndike, and others lived when the popular impression 
of the power of witchcraft to produce sensible supernatural effects upon 
human bodies and minds was strong, and not confined to the lower 
and untaught classes, but shared by the educated. Yet Christian 
evidence was in their day a definite department of theology. Grotius 
had produced a treatise which reigned in our schools, and Pascal 
meditated another, of which the fragmentary beginnings are pre- 
served in his " Thoughts." Our divines all that time discussed the 
miraculous proofs of Christianity, and shewed themselves quite ade- 
quate to that task. Sir Matthew Hale, in the year 1665, declared 
his own belief in witchcraft upon the occasion of condemning two 
women to death for that crime ; yet it would be a very mistaken 
inference to draw from the existence of such a belief in that eminent 
Christian lawyer, that he could not have a correct perception of the 
evidences of Christianity, or was unequal to draw up a sound and 
rational statement of those evidences. The Fathers partook of the 
popular ideas of their age, which did not however incapacitate them 
for judging of Christian evidences, or neutralize their statements on 
this subject. 

NOTE 4, p. 19. 

" I therefore proceed," says Spinoza, " to the consideration of 
the four principles which I here propose to myself to demonstrate, 
and in the following order: 1st, I shall begin by shewing that 
nothing happens contrary to the order of nature, and that this order 
subsists without pause or interruption, eternal and unchangeable. I 
shall at the same time take occasion to explain what is to be under- 
stood by a miracle. 2nd, I shall prove that miracles cannot make 
known to us the essence and existence of God, nor consequently 
His providence, these great truths being so much better illustrated 
and proclaimed by the regular and invariable order of nature. . . . 

1 " All the nations of Christendom," says Dr. Hey (Norrisian Professor 
1780-1795), "have so far taken these powers for granted, as to provide legal 
remedies against them. At this time there subsist in this University one 
if not several foundations for annual sermons to be preached against them. " 
(Bishop Kay's Tertullian, p. 171.) 



216 Note 4 [Lect. 

" (i) . . . . As nothing is absolutely true save by Divine decree 
alone, it is evident that the universal laws of nature are the very 
decrees of God, which result necessarily from the perfection of 
the Divine nature. If therefore anything happened in nature 
at large repugnant to its universal laws, this would be equally 
repugnant to the decrees and intelligence of God ; so that any one 
who maintained that God acted in opposition to the laws of nature, 
would at the same time be forced to maintain that God acted in op- 
position to His proper nature, an idea than which nothing can 
be imagined more absurd. I might shew the same thing, or strengthen 
what I have just said, by referring to the truth that the power of nature 
is in fact the Divine Power ; Divine Power is the very essence of God 
Himself. But this I pass by for the present. Nothing, then, happens 
in nature which is in contradiction with its universal laws. 1 Nor this 
only ; nothing happens which is not in accordance with these laws, 
or does not follow them : for whatever is, and whatever happens, is 
and happens by the will and eternal decree of God ; that is, as has 
been already shewn, whatever happens does so according to rules and 
laws which involve eternal truth and necessity. Nature consequently 
always observes laws, although all of these are not known to us, which 
involve eternal truth and necessity, and thus preserves a fixed and 
immutable course 

" From these premises, therefore, viz. that nothing happens in nature 
which does not follow from its laws; that these laws extend to all 
which enters into the Divine mind ; and, lastly, that nature proceeds 
in a fixed and changeless course ; it follows most obviously that the 
word miracle can only be understood in relation to the opinions of 
mankind, and signifies nothing more than an event, a phenomenon, 
the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, 
or, in any case, which the narrator is unable to explain. I might 
say, indeed, that a miracle was that the cause of which cannot be 
explained by our natural understanding from the known principles of 
natural things 

" (2) But it is time I passed on to my second proposition, which was 
to shew that from miracles we can neither obtain a knowledge of the 
existence nor of the providence of God ; on the contrary, that these 
are much better elicited from the eternal and changeless order of 

nature But suppose that it is said that a miracle is that 

which cannot be explained by natural causes ; this may be understood 
in two ways : either that it has natural causes which cannot be inves- 
tigated by the human understanding, or that it acknowledges no 
cause save God, or the will of God. But as all that happens, also 
happens by the sole will and power of God, it were then necessary to 
say that a miracle either owned natural causes, or if it did not, that it 
was inexplicable by any cause ; in other words, that it was something 
which it surpassed the human capacity to understand. But of any- 

1 Spinoza says in a note, — "By nature here I do not understand the 
material universe only, and its affections, but besides matter an infinity 
of other things." 



I] 



Note 4 217 



thing in general, and of the particular thing in question, viz. the 
miracle, which surpasses our powers of comprehension, nothing what- 
ever can be known. For that which we clearly and distinctly under- 
stand must become known to us either of itself, or by something else 
which of itself is clearly and distinctly understood. Wherefore, from 
a miracle, as an incident surpassing our powers of comprehension, we 
cannot understand anything, either of the essence or existence, or any 

other quality of God or nature 

" Wherefore, as regards our understanding, those events which we 
clearly snd distinctly comprehend, are with much better right en- 
titled works of God, and referred to His will, than those which are 
wholly unintelligible to us, although they strongly seize upon our ima- 
gination and wrap us in amazement ; inasmuch as those works of 
nature only which we clearly and distinctly apprehend render our 
knowledge of God truly sublime, and point to His will and decrees 

with the greatest clearness For if miracles be understood as 

interruptions or abrogations of the order of nature, or as subversive of 
its laws, not only could they not give us any knowledge of God, but, on 
the contrary, they would destroy that which we naturally have, and would 
induce doubt both of the existence of God and of everything else." 
(Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. vi.) 

The argument of Spinoza under the first head is based upon an 
ambiguity in the meaning of " Nature," one sense of which it uses in the 
premiss, and another in the conclusion. In the premiss, Spinoza uses 
" Nature " in the sense of the universe both spiritual and material ; in 
which sense it is true that " nothing happens in nature which is in con- 
tradiction with its universal laws." For even a miracle, though con- 
trary to the order of the material world, or an interruption of it, is in 
agreement with the order of the universe as a whole, as proceeding 
from the Power of the Head of that universe, for a purpose and end 
included in the design of the universe. In the conclusion he slides 
from the universal sense of nature to the sense of nature as this ma- 
terial order of things. The miracle, or violation of the order of nature 
which is pronounced impossible, is the literal historical miracle, which 
is only a contradiction to this visible order of nature. The conclusion, 
then, is not got legitimately out of the premiss. God cannot act in 
opposition to the law and order of the whole universe, in which case 
He would be acting against His own intelligence and will. But it 
does not follow that God may not act in contradiction to the order of 
a part, because the part is subordinate to the whole : and therefore an 
exception to the order of a part may be subservient to the order and 
design of the whole. Spinoza, it may be added, from the term " law " 
extracts " a fixed and immutable course of things," or necessity : but 
" law " in this sense is a pure hypothesis, without proof. 

The argument of Spinoza under the second head is based upon 



2 1 8 Note 4 [Lect. 

overlooking a miracle as an instrument, its acting as a note and sign 
of the Divine will, and only regarding it as an anomaly beginning and 
ending with itself. Emerson adopts Spinoza's aspect of a mir acle, 
when he says, — "The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian 
Churches, gives a false impression ; it is a Monster. It is not one 
with the blowing clouds and the falling rain." (Lee on Miracles, 
p. 92.) 

NOTE 5, p. 24. 

Whether or not Mahometanism stands in need of miracles to 
attest its truth, must depend upon what Mahometanism is ; whether 
or not it pretends to be a revelation in the strict sense ; i.e. a revela- 
tion which communicates truths undiscoverable by human reason. 
Were Mahometanism simply Deism, or rather Monotheism ; did it 
only inculcate upon mankind the great principle of the Unity of God ; 
impressing together with that doctrine the obligation of worship and 
other moral and religious duties which were obvious to reason ; in 
that case Mahometanism could not require the evidence of miracles 
to witness to its truth. Because the principle of the Unity of God is 
one which naturally approves itself to the reason of man. 

1. But Mahomet did not adopt this position : he did not confine 
himself to the ground of human reason, but professed to have a new 
and express revelation of his own to communicate to mankind, a reve- 
lation which came to him straight from heaven. " We reveal unto 
thee this Koran," 1 God is represented as saying to Mahomet in that 
book ; " Thou hast certainly received the Koran from the presence of a 
wise and knowing God." (chap, xxvii.) He professed to have had this 
revelation imparted to him by the medium of an angel, the angel 
Gabriel : " Gabriel (God is represented as speaking) hath caused the 
Koran to descend upon thine heart, by the permission of God." (chap. 

1 "Which we have sent down in the Arabic tongue." (Koran, chap, 
xii.) Sale says : " The Mahommedans absolutely deny that the Koran was 
composed by their prophet himself, or any other for him ; it being their 
general and orthodox belief that it is of divine original, nay, that it 
is eternal and uncreated, remaining, as some express it, in the very 
essence of God ; that the first transcript has been from everlasting by 
God's throne, written on a table of vast bigness, called the preserved table, 
in which are also recorded the divine decrees past and future ; that a copy 
from this table, in one volume on paper, was, by the ministry of the angel 
Gabriel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of Ramadam, on the 
night of power : from whence Gabriel revealed it to Mahommed by parcels, 
some at Mecca and some at Medina, at different times, during the space 
of twenty-three years, as the exigency of affairs required." (Preliminary 
Discourse, sec. iii.) 



I] Note 5 219 

ii.) It is true that tins revelation to Mahomet is exhibited as a supple- 
mentary one, not, i.e. as a revelation which contradicts and supersedes 
the former revelations of the Law and the Gospel, but which carries 
them out and advances a further step upon them ; but this light in 
which the Koran is put, does not shew that it does not, but that it does 
profess to be an express and separate revelation to Mahomet. It ip plain 
that the Gospel, though a development of the Law, was a separate 
revelation from the Law, on which account it was attested by its own 
special and appropriate credentials : the revelation to Mahomet there- 
fore, if it stood in a like supplementary relation to both of these former 
revelations together, was a revelation additional to both, a new reve- 
lation to mankind which required its own credentials, as the Gospel 
did when it succeeded to the Law. 

" The Koran," says Mr. Forster, " was delivered by Mahomet, pro- 
fessedly as the complement of the former Scriptures of the Law and 
the Gospel, as a further revelation, that is to say, perfective of both ; 
and advancing in its turn on the revelation of the Gospel, as this had 

previously advanced on that of the Mosaic Law Passages in 

the Koran directly class the Mahometan Bible so-called with the Old 
and New Testaments." {MahomManism Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 14.) 

The supernatural communication then of God to Mahomet, the 
Divine Mission of Mahomet, needed attestation, to oblige a rational 
assent to and belief in it. That Mahomet stood in these supernatural 
relations to the Divine Being was a mysterious truth which no man 
could ascertain by the natural exercise of his reason. The Divine 
intercourse with him was a fact which belonged in its own nature to 
the invisible and supernatural world. Mahomet's assertion then was 
not proof of it, neither was his success : it required the guarantee of 
miracles. 

2. But besides the Divine mission of Mahomet to establish a new dis- 
pensation, the substance of the Mahometan revelation itself is in many 
parts wholly undiscoverable by human reason. The great principle of 
Monotheism is so prominent in Mahometanism, as a system of religious 
belief, that we are apt to regard it as the only one, and so to look 
upon the religion in a light in which it can dispense with miraculous 
evidence. But besides the great doctrine of the Divine Unity, many 
most important articles of belief are divulged in the Koran — articles 
relating to the intermediate state, the mode of the general resurrection, 
the proceedings of the last judgment, the state of purgatory, its pains 
and duration ; the happiness of heaven and the torments of hell. 
Minute revelations are made on these subjects, which are of overpower- 
ing interest to the Mahometan believer ; but which are entirely super- 



220 Note 5 [Lect. 

natural communications, and undiscoverable by human reason. Such 
information then relating to the mysterious and invisible world stands 
in need of some mark or guarantee to attest its correctness : nor can it 
rationally oblige the belief of those to whom it is given, unless it can 
produce such a voucher. But no such is produced in Mahometanism. 

But besides the doctrines and revelations relating to the invisible 
world, Mahometanism also contains a large mass of rules and usages re- 
lating to practice, all of which rest upon a ground of express revelation, 
and are regarded upon that account as obligatory ; and which therefore 
imply some direct guarantee attaching to them, in proof that they are 
Divine commands. General precepts indeed for the observance of the 
duty of prayer, almsgiving, &c, do not require any special voucher for 
their authority, because moral duties carry their own evidence with 
them, and conscience accepts them upon their own intrinsic ground. 
But positive institutions and regulations, which are not binding upon 
any moral or natural ground, can only be rendered obligatory by 
some direct sign and warrant that the command to observe them 
conies from God. What tokens then do the positive institutions of 
Mahometanism present as credentials of their Divine origin, and in 
proof of their obligatoriness ? The positive rules and institutions of 
the Mosaic law exhibited the warrant of miracles, but those of 
Mahometanism do not. The minute regulations prescribed for the 
performance of prayer, the observance of sacred seasons and days, the 
institution of pilgrimage, and much other ceremonial matter, all stand 
in the Mahometan religion upon the express ground of a Divine com- 
mand ; so do the prohibitions or negative ordinances of external 
observance in that religion ; a large body even of civil law stands 
upon the same footing. But of this special Divine authority no 
rational proof is given. 

Should the Mahometans ever alter the basis of their religion, and 
place their creed and their institutions upon another footing ; should 
they reduce the inspiration of their Prophet to the insight of a deep 
religious mind into the great truth of the Unity of God ; accept 
that belief as resting upon grounds of reason, and discard all 
the revelations of the Koran relating to the invisible world and a 
future state ; should they transfer the positive institutions of Maho- 
metanism from the ground of a Divine command to that of expediency, 
and so from being sacred and unchangeable lower them into alterable 
human arrangements ; in that case their religion would not need 
miracles, but then their religion would cease to be Mahometanism. 
Such a religion would be Deism, or natural religion. But Mahome- 
tanism as it is, is more than Deism ; it is a professed revelation, and 



"J 



Note i 221 



the revelation of what is undiscoverable by human reason ; the 
belief in which, not only without that degree but without that kind 
of proof which a revelation requires, is in its very form irrational 
belief, though thousands not only of rational but intelligent persons 
may hold it. 



LECTUEE II 

NOTE 1, p. 27. 

Bishop Butler in the introduction to the " Analogy" called atten- 
tion to the deficiency in the philosophical treatment of the argument 
from experience, that the nature and ground of it had not been gone 
into ; — a part of the subject however which he declines pursuing 
himself as not being necessary to the particular object with which he 
was concerned. " It is not my design," he says, " to inquire further 
into the nature, the foundation, and measure of probability, or whence 
it proceeds that likeness should beget that presumptive opinion and 
full conviction which the human mind is formed to receive from it, 
and which it does produce in every one. This belongs to the subject of 
Logic, and is a part of that subject which has not yet been thoroughly 
considered." The "Analogy" came out in 1736, and Hume's 
" Treatise of Human Nature," which entered upon this new field of 
inquiry, and took up for the first time in philosophy the question of 
the ground of the argument of experience, by a curious coincidence, 
followed the notice of the want in the " Analogy " by an interval of 
only two years, coming out in 1738. 

NOTE 2, p. 42. 

The general definition of Induction, that it is " a process of in- 
ference from the known to the unknown ; " the operation of the mind 
by which we infer that what we know to be true in particular cases 
wdll be true in all similar cases, that what is true at certain times will 
be true in similar circumstances at all times (Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 
297), is universally assented to. The peculiarity of the process is 
confessed to be that it gets out of facts something more than what 
they actually contain ; extends them further than they actually go. 
To pronounce upon what is wholly unknown, and say that it, the 
unknown thing, is or will be so and so, because the known is so and 
so, is thus to extend known facts beyond themselves ; but unless 



222 Note 2 [Lect. 

this is done, there is no induction. " Any operation involving no 
inference, any process in which what seems the conclusion is no wider 
than the premisses from which it is drawn, does not fall within the 
meaning of the term " (Mill, i. 297). " Did he [a philosopher] infer 
anything that had not been observed, from something else which had ? 
Certainly not." There was no induction then (p. 301). " There was 
not that transition from known cases to unknown which constitutes 
induction" (p. 313). " The process of induction," says Dr. Whewell, 
"includes a mysterious step by which we pass from particulars to 
generals, of which step the reason always seems to be inadequately 
rendered by any words which we can use." (Philosophy of Discovery, 
p. 284). 

But after the first general definition of induction Dr. Whewell and 
Mr. Mill disagree. In Mr. Mill's view induction is in its essence a 
simple direct process of arguing from some things to other things, 
from particulars to particulars, without the medium of the conscious 
contemplation of those known particulars in a general form, that is to 
say, the medium of language or general propositions. The mind simply 
passes on from several individual cases known to another individual 
case not known. " Not only may we reason from particulars to par- 
ticulars without passing through generals, but we perpetually do so 
reason. All our earliest inferences are of this nature. From the 
first dawn of our intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse 
before we learn the use of general language. The child who, having 
burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has 
reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the general 
maxim, 'Fire burns.' He knows from memory that he has been 
burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he sees a candle, that 
if he puts his finger into the flame of it he will be burnt again. 
He believes this in every case which happens to arise, but without 
looking in each instance beyond the present case. He is not 
generalizing, he is inferring a particular from particulars. In the same 
way also brutes reason. There is no ground for attributing to any of 
the lower animals the use of signs, of such a nature as to render 
general propositions possible. But those animals profit by experi- 
ence, and avoid what they have found to cause them pain, in the same 
manner, though not always with the same skill, as a human creature. 
Not only the burnt child, but the burnt dog dreads the fire " (Mill, i. 
210). " All inference is from particulars to particulars. General pro- 
positions are merely registers of such inferences already made, and 
short formulae for making more .... the real logical antece- 
dent or premisses being the particular facts from which the general 



"J 



Note 2 



proposition was collected by induction" (p. 216). " If we have a 
collection of particulars sufficient for grounding an induction, we need 
not frame a general proposition : we may. reason at once from those par- 
ticulars to other particulars }> (p. 220). The idea of the essence of the 
inductive process contained in these passages agrees with that of 
Hume, who regards it as an instinctive process, performed in no argu- 
mentative way, or by any argumentative medium. The idea also 
agrees with Hume's idea of the process as being no part of the distinc- 
tive human reason, or resting upon grounds of human reason, but 
being common to rational and irrational natures. " Experimental 
reasoning," says Hume, " we possess in common with beasts ; " Mr. 
Mill says, " In this way (i.e. in inferring unknown particulars from 
known ones) brutes reason." 

Dr. Whewell, however, differs from this account"of induction as being 
an inference direct from particulars ; as well as from the idea of in- 
duction as a process in essence common to rational and irrational 
natures ; he regards it as essential to the idea of induction that it 
should be a conscious philosophical process, carried on by means of 
" general propositions, or observations consciously looked at in a 
general form." " Not only a general thought but a general word or 
phrase is a requisite element in induction." 1 (Philosophy of Disco- 
very, pp. 241, 245.) 

Whether then a " general proposition " or " word " or " conscious 
general form of knowledge " is essential to induction as a process carried 
on in intelligent minds, is a question which must be decided by the 
examination of the fact— the consideration of what by the inspection of 
our own minds we perceive ourselves to do in induction. On examining 
then what goes on in our own minds, when as intelligent and rational 
beings from known particulars we infer what is unknown and beyond 
them — which is induction, it does not appear to be at all necessary 
or essential to that proceeding, that those particular observations 
should pass through the medium of a general proposition. The in- 
ductive inference naturally and with full propriety attaches itself to an 
observation a certain number of times made ; upon the mere repetition 
of the fact observed the mind goes on to an inference respecting 
what is not observed, viz. that the latter will be like the former ; the 
observations may be rational and intelligent ones, made with sagacity 
and discernment, but that they should have been made time after 

1 "The elements and materials of science," the writer adds, "are neces- 
sary truths contemplated by the intellect: it is by consisting of such 
elements and such materials that science is science." (p. 244.) But has 
inductive science to do with necessary truths ? 



Note 2 [Lect. 



time, and should simply exist in the memory as a series or succession 
of particular facts, is enough in order that the inductive inference may 
attach constitutionally to them. It has happened so, this and that 
and the other time, therefore it will so happen again under the same 
circumstances. A physician has observed in so many patients the con- 
nection of a disease with certain symptoms ; he expects the same con- 
nection in the next patient. This an inference from particulars simply, 
but it is rational induction. 

Indeed, as Mr. Mill observes, particulars are not only enough to infer 
from, and the inductive inference legitimate from them, without any 
medium of a general proposition, but in the nature of the case parti- 
culars are the only ground which we really have for induction to 
proceed upon, and the essential argument is in every case of induction 
from particulars. Particulars are all we know of, and therefore all 
we can possibly argue from. It is true we may introduce if we please 
a general proposition into the affair, and instead of proceeding straight 
from the particular facts and getting the inference from them as an 
induction, turn the particular facts into a general proposition from 
which we obtain the inference as a deduction. Instead of saying, ' Alex- 
ander, Ceesar, Queen Elizabeth, Peter, Eobert, William, (the list might 
be supposed extended to all who ever lived, and still be only a list of 
particular persons,) have died ; therefore I shall die ;' I may say, * All 
men die,' which is a general proposition, and, infer my own death as 
included in it. But this is a mere difference of form or arrangement 
which does not affect the substance of an inductive argument, or 
divorce it from its real basis in particulars. " The mortality of John, 
Thomas, and company," says Mr Mill, " is, after all, the only evidence 
we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not one iota 
is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition. Since 
the individual cases are all the evidence we can possess, evidence 
which no logical form into which we choose to throw it can make 
greater than it is .... I am unable to see why we should be for- 
bidden to take the shortest cut from these premisses to the conclu- 
sion, and constrained to travel the 'high priori road' by the arbitrary 
fiat of logicians." (vol. i. p. 209.) 

A general proposition introduced into an inductive argument can- 
not be inserted as any real or true ground of it ; for if it is inserted 
as a truth, it is a petitio principii, and should therefore be immediately 
ejected. But if it is only introduced as a formal medium or mode of 
statement, it is not of the essence of the rational and scientific argu- 
ment of induction. 

The general proposition, so far as it comes in correctlv at all, is 



II] 



Note 2 225 



indeed the conclusion of the inductive argument, and therefore cannot 
be the premiss of it. A general proposition however, i.e. a universal 
proposition, is not properly eveu the conclusion of the inductive argu- 
ment, i.e. it is only used as such from the necessities of language, and 
because we have no other available formula for expressing the true 
conclusion in our mind. The inductive conclusion which really 
exists in the mind is indeed neither a general proposition nor a par- 
ticular proposition. It is a vague indefinite expectation of a practical 
kind that when a thing has happened so repeatedly, it will continue 
to happen so under the same circumstances. But this indefinite ex- 
pectation in our minds, this anticipatory look-out into the future or 
unknown, is not correctly expressed by a general proposition ; because 
this is more than the true internal conclusion. A general proposition 
is the universal statement that the sun will always rise, but this is a 
statement which we do not really make in our minds, and is in excess 
of and beyond our actual mental condition and attitude on the sub- 
ject. A general proposition is thus to the real inductive conclusion 
within the mind a case which is too large for its contents, which sticks 
out on all sides with unsubstantial amplitude. The inductive con- 
clusion is not knowledge, and therefore if we give it the form of 
knowledge by means of a universal assertion, we still do not make it 
knowledge any the more by so doing, but only use a formula, with 
an understanding with ourselves about it. But neither, on the other 
hand, is the inductive conclusion a ' particular' in the strict sense ; 
we reason from particulars, but not properly to particulars. If be- 
cause the sun has always risen hitherto, I say it will rise to-morrow 
morning, or the morning after ; that is a limitation of the real induc- 
tive conclusion in the mind, just as the general proposition is an 
excess of it. I do not adequately express the anticipation of which I 
am possessed, by this particular, — to-morrow morning, or another 
morning. When I make this particular prophecy, I plainly make it 
on the ground of a more general one. It is indeed exactly the same 
really, whether I say the sun will rise to-morrow, or the sun will rise 
always ; I have the same meaning in my mind in both expressions. 
The same general anticipation speaks under both forms. All men 
hitherto have died ; I shall die. This latter is a particular. But it 
is evidently exactly the same really, whether I say, c I shall die,' or 
1 All men will die ;' it is actually in the mind the same anticipation 
in either case. 

For the argument of the Second Lecture it is enough, if without 
entering into the comparison of the inductive process as it goes on in 
rational creatures with the same process as it goes on in irrational, 

P 



226 Note 2 [Lect. 

that process looked at in itself is admitted to be unaccountable and 
not founded on reason : for if — that which is identical with this pro- 
cess — the belief in the order of nature does not rest upon reason, the 
ground is gone upon which it can be maintained that a contradiction 
to that order is as such contrary to reason. The language however 
of philosophers, even when most cautious upon this subject, shews 
that if we look only to the inductive inference itself purely and simply, 
as distinguished from the facts from which it is an inference, and as 
unaffected by the difference in the character and rank of these facts ; 
that if we regard it only as the attaching of continuance to whatever 
it is which has been repeated ; it is impossible to make out any posi- 
tive difference between that inference in rational natures and irra- 
tional. It is so difficult wholly to abstract the inference from the 
facts from which it is an inference, that we do not get the idea of the 
pure inference itself into our minds. According to the received lan- 
guage however of philosophers this inference is wholly unaccountable 
and altogether non-logical in rational natures : " to pass from parti- 
culars to generals is a mysterious step," says Dr. Whewell, however 
scientific the material to which it is applied : — " there must neces- 
sarily be a logical defect in it" — "the rules of the syllogism do not 
authorize the answers of the inductive generalizing impulse.* (Philo- 
sophy of Discovery, pp. 284, 451, 457.) But if the inductive impulse 
is thus in rational natures instinctive, mechanical, and non-logical, in 
what does it differ from the same impulse in irrational natures ? 
Man is a rational being, but if he does not draw the inductive infer- 
ence with his reason, that inference is not affected by his peculiar and 
distinctive gift of the rational faculty. Man knows indeed, when he 
contemplates himself and compares his actions and calculations with 
the grounds and motives upon which they rest, that he is the subject 
of a mechanical impression, which brutes, who have not the self-con- 
templative faculty, do not know ; and he shews that this operation 
has taken place in his mind by propositions, whereas irrational beings 
only shew that it has by action ; but do consciousness and language 
touch the nature of the operation itself ? Mr. Mill, though he has 
admitted that brutes "reason" (vol. i. p. 210) and draw instinctively 
the inductive inference, yet "objects" with Dr. Whewell "to the 
application of the term induction to any operation performed by 
mere instinct ; that is from an animal impulse, without the exer- 
tion of any intelligence." (Note, vol. i. p. 295.) Nor is such a restric- 
tion in the application of the term otherwise than proper, because 
we associate with the term induction not only the mysterious and 
unreasoning step beyond the facts which have been described 



"1 



Note 2 227 



\mt also the scientific search for and discovery of the facts them- 
selves ; but this restriction of the term does not touch the question 
which we have been considering : — a question however which, as 
I have observed, is more a curious than important one, if only the 
main fact of the unreasoning nature of the inductive inference is 
admitted. 

What it is which constitutes the ground of induction or the infer- 
ence from the known to the unknown has been since Hume's time a 
matter of dispute among philosophers, all of whom however agree in 
the negative point, that the inference does not rest upon any ground 
of reason. " The ingenious author of the Treatise of Human Nature," 
says Dr. Reid, " first observed that our belief of the continuance of the 
laws of nature cannot be founded either upon knowledge or proba- 
bility ; but far from conceiving it to be an original principle of the 
mind, he endeavours to account for it from his favourite hypothesis. 
.... However, we agree with the author of the Treatise of Human 
Nature in this, that our belief in the continuance of nature's laws is 
not derived from reason. It is an instinctive prescience of the opera- 
tions of nature Antecedently to all reasoning we have by our 

constitution an anticipation that there is a fixed and steady course of 

nature And this prescience I call the inductive principle." 

{Reid on Human Mind, sect, xxiv.) Brown disagrees with Hume's 
rationale of custom as the ground of the inference from the known to 
the unknown. " Custom may account for the mere suggestion of one 
object by another, as a part of a train of images, but not for that 
belief of future reality which is a very different state of mind. The 
phenomenon A, a stone has a thousand times fallen to the earth ; 
the phenomenon B, a stone will always, in the same circumstances, 
fall to the earth— are propositions that differ as much as the proposi- 
tions, A, a stone has once fallen to the earth ; B, a stone will always 
fall to the earth. At whatever link of the chain we begin, we must 
still meet with the same difficulty — the conversion of the past into the 
future. If it be absurd to make this conversion at one stage of in- 
quiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any other stage." His own 
rationale is "succession of thought" — "the natural tendency of the 
mind to exist in certain states after existing in certain other states." 
The general expectation which succeeds to the facts of experience, he 
conceives, is only an instance of this principle. " This belief is a state 
or feeling of the mind as easily conceivable as any other state of it — 
a new feeling arising in certain circumstances," in the same way in 
which other states of feeling arise. " To have our nerves of taste or 
hearing affected in a certain manner, is not indeed to taste or to hear, 



228 Note 2 [Lect. 

but it is immediately afterwards to have those particular sensations ; 
and this merely because the mind was originally so constituted, as to 
exist directly in the one state after existing in the other. To observe, 
in like manner, a series of antecedents and consequents, is not, in the 
very feeling of the moment, to believe in the future similarity, but, 
in consequence of a similar original tendency, it is immediately after- 
wards to believe, that the same antecedents will invariably be followed 
by the same consequents. That this belief of the future is a state of 
mind very different from the mere perception or memory of the past, 
from which it flows, is indeed true ; but what resemblance has sweet- 
ness, as a sensation of the mind, to the solution of a few particles of 
sugar on the tongue ; or the harmonies of music to the vibration of 
particles of air. All which we know, in both cases, is, that these succes- 
sions regularly take place ; and in the regular successions of nature, which 
could not, in one instance more than in another, have been predicted 
without experience, nothing is mysterious, or everything is mysterious. 
It is wonderful, indeed, — for what is not wonderful ? — that any belief 
should arise as to a future which as yet has no existence ; and which 
therefore cannot, in the strict sense of the word, be an object of our 
knowledge. But when we consider who it was who formed us, it 
would in truth have been more wonderful if the mind had been so 
differently constituted that the belief had not arisen ; because, in that 
case, the phenomena of nature, however regularly arranged, would 
have been arranged in vain." (Brown's Philosophy of the Human 
Mind, — Chapter on Objects of Physical Enquiry, vol. i. p. 190.) The 
criticism to which both these explanations of the inference from expe- 
rience is open, is that they are only ingenious statements of the fact. 
Reid's " instinctive prescience" is as a phrase inaccurate, because we 
have not prescience or knowledge of the future \ such prescience can 
only really mean expectation ; and then the explanation becomes 
only a statement of the fact that we do expect the future to be like 
the past. Brown's explanation approaches more to the nature of an 
explanation, and yet at bottom it is only the statement that after 
experience of the past we have expectation of the future, that the 
former state of mind succeeds the latter. Hume's rationale of custom, 
though undoubtedly deficient, has the advantage of connecting the 
argument of experience with a great principle in nature, which is not 
identical with it, with which however it appears to be connected ; 
and thus approaches more to the nature of an explanation than these 
two. The question, however, what is the nature of the inductive 
inference, and to what principle we are to refer it, is an ulterior 
question which does not affect the argument of this Lecture, for 



«] 



Note 2 229 



which it is enough to say what it is not, viz. that it is not grounded 
on reason. 

The nature of this remarkable assumption, again, upon which all 
induction rests, is discussed in the article on the " Immutability of 
Nature," in the Quarterly Keview (No. 220, 1861) : — 

" But then Science will turn to that axiom upon which, after all, 
the cogency of induction must rest. From the human mind, not 
from outward experience, as Dr. Whewell so wisely reiterates, we 
must derive the idea that ' similar causes will produce similar effects.' 
Our belief in the universality and immutability of the operations of 
nature must rest ultimately upon this internal instinct. Trace that 
belief, with Hume, to custom ; or with others to association ; or with 
others to a separate principle in the human mind ; call it the general- 
izing principle, or the inductive principle : whatever account we give 
of it, this only, and not experience, can be our authority for assuming 
the continuity and stability of nature. And if it be a law of mind, 
a law like our moral principles, so stamped upon our being as to bear 
the marks of a revelation from God, then upon our faith in the 
veracity of God, upon our conviction that He would never engrave 
ineffaceably and unalterably upon the tables of our hearts and souls 
anything but truths (in one word, after all, upon faith, and not on 
proof), we may found our science of induction. But is it so stamped 
by God? Is it more than an instinct, a tendency, an impulse, requir- 
ing, like so many other tendencies of our nature, to be narrowly 
watched, balanced, and corrected by opposite tendencies 1 All our 
sins and vices may be traced up to tendencies and principles, all 
implanted in our being by nature, but not therefore to be blindly 
followed without control or qualification. Are we yet sufficiently 
acquainted with the nature of this principle to decide this question 1 
Are there not obvious marks which class it rather with our instincts 
than with our reason — with imperfect impulses of our compound 
nature, rather than with absolute revelations from God ? We can 
break its links. We cannot believe gratitude to be a sin, or falsehood 
meritorious; but we can imagine and believe in the existence of a 
world, where all the combinations of nature may be totally different 
from our present experience. The connexion between death and the 
swallowing of arsenic is of a totally different kind from that between 
injustice and the punishable character of injustice. No one would 
affirm of moral truths, as Science affirms of material causes and effects, 
that our knowledge of them rests wholly upon experience. 

" That the principle has been so little studied, is so little under- 
stood, would suffice to warn us against asserting at once its Divine 
authority and sanction for the universal immutability of Nature. It 
would seem partly to be a result of the mechanical association of 
ideas, by which the mind spontaneously and unconsciously recalls 
and suggests combinations once observed, forming thus our memory, 
our habits, our character, our pleasures, our imagination, and a very 
large proportion of our practical reasoning. But every step we take 



230 Note 2 [Lect. 

in life compels us to keep this associating tendency under the 
strictest control, to regard it, as a hundred other tendencies in our 
nature, necessary to existence — valuable as a prompter — but ... re- 
quiring at every step to be kept in check by experience, by faith in 
testimony." 

It may be objected to the ordinary account of induction as based 
upon repetition and recurrence, that in the case of experiments repeti- 
tion is not wanted to produce the feeling of assurance in the mind ; 
i.e. that this is not the basis of the practical certainty we have in the 
result of experiments: that our assurance of this is not gradually 
acquired, slight at first and increasing afterwards every time the 
experiment is tried ; but that after one chemical experiment, shewing 
the properties of a substance, or the effects of the union of two sub- 
stances, we feel as sure that the same properties and effects will 
appear again as we do after the experiment has been fifty times re- 
peated ; or that if we do not, the want of such certainty arises from 
the doubt whether the experiment has been properly tried, it being 
possible, e.g. that some chance ingredient may have got in ; not from 
the need of repetition supposing the accuracy of the experiment. 

This is a question, then, which does not at all concern the nature 
of the ground of induction or the inference from experience, that it 
is instinctive and not founded on reason. Because were it true that 
the certainty of an experiment after one performance is as great as it 
is ever after, and that this certainty is strictly of an inductive kind, 
the instance would only shew, not that inductive certainty was not 
of the instinctive kind asserted, but only that inductive certainty, 
being of this nature, sometimes arose upon one case, instead of always 
requiring repetition. The difference would shew that there were 
difficulties in the interior of the subject of induction which were not 
yet solved, but it would not shew that the inductive inference from 
experience, whether arising upon a single case or upon repetition, 
rested upon a ground of reason. 

It admits, however, of a considerable question, whether in the in- 
telligent attitude of the mind toward an experiment, the certainty 
reposed in an experiment is an inductive certainty. There is indeed 
a posture of mind in which experiments are regarded simply as 
phenomena of experience, phenomena presented to the eye apart from 
their object and rationale; and the confidence in experiments, re- 
garded in this light, does not seem other than an inductive confidence ; 
but then in this light experiments do not seem free from but to come 
under the law of repetition ; for we should anticipate the issue of an 
old familiar experiment that Lad been performed in all laboratories 



II] 



Note 3 23 



and lecture-rooms for years, with more confidence and more as a 
matter of course than we should the issue of a new one which had 
only been tried once or twice. But in the intelligent attitude of the 
mind toward an experiment it draws a distinction between the natural 
properties of a substance which are supposed and taken for granted as 
being such and such, and their mere exhibition to the eye by means 
of an experimental process. We take it for granted upon the ordinary 
instinctive ground, that the substance before us is exactly the same 
substance with exactly the same properties as the substance upon 
which the late experiment was tried ; but upon this assumption, the 
fact that such and such is the property of the substance before us, is, 
after the late experiment, no step of induction, but an article of 
knowledge. We know that the property is there, which the second 
experiment only makes visible to the eye and does not prove to the 
mind. It must be observed that in the case of an experiment we 
have, to begin with, the advantage of the common instinctive induc- 
tion of the identity of the substance before us with the last substance, 
already existing as our groundwork; and, upon this groundwork 
assumed, the result of the second experiment is contained in the 
result of the first ; and therefore this result is not, upon this ground 
assumed, an inductive one. If it be said that the inductive nature of 
this groundwork still continues, that is true, and so far the result of 
the experiment is inductive. So far as it is not an absolute certainty 
that this is the same substance, with the same properties, as the last 
one, so far it is not a certainty that the result of the experiment will 
be the same : but in attending to the experiment the mind puts aside 
the uncertainty, whatever there may be, of the groundwork of it, and 
does not consider it. 



NOTE 3, p. 42. 

I 8 at, " The first part of the inductive process is not reasoning, but 
observation; the second is not reasoning, but instinct." The first 
part of the inductive process may with general truth be described as 
"observation," in distinction to reasoning, because the sagacious 
observation of facts is all that is necessary to found an induction, and 
the great mass of inductions are founded simply upon facts of observa- 
tion. Such facts, i.e. facts of scientific observation, Dr. Whewell calls 
" selected facts," the selection of them being by means of certain con- 
ceptions of the mind, by which facts are perceived in their proper 
relation, which he calls " colligation." (Philosophy of Ind. Sciences, 
vol. ii. chaps, ii.-iv.) " In the progress of science," says Dr. Whewell, 



232 Notes [Lect. 

" facts are hound together by the aid of suitable conceptions. This 
part of the formation of our knowledge I call the colligation of facts ; 
and we may apply the term to every case in which by an act of the 
intellect we establish a precise connexion among the phenomena 
which are presented to our senses." (p. 36.) Even to the old, and as 
it happens untrue, Aristotelian fact of the longevity of " acholous " 
animals, the writer applies the term " conception." " It is a selected 
fact, a fact selected and compared in several cases, which is what we 
mean by a conception. ... He applied the conception acholous 
to his observation of animals. This conception divided them into 
two classes, and these classes were, he fancied, long-lived and short- 
lived respectively." (Philosophy of Discovery, p. 455.) 

It may, however, happen that particular facts upon which induc- 
tions are founded, are not the results of observation solely, but that 
the ascertainment of them involves reasoning, e.g. astronomical facts, 
the distance of the moon, the globular form of the earth, &c. In par- 
ticular cases, again, it is disputed whether an observation involves 
more than simple observation or not ; as e.g. Kepler's discovery of the 
curve of the orbit of Mars. Mr. Mill says, this was only " the sum 
of the observations," not an induction from them ; — the sum of the 
observations with the addition of the " curve the different observed 
points would make supposing them all to be joined together," — which 
was description. Dr. Whewell says " that the intermediate positions 
between the several observations are an induction, [quoting Mr. Mill 
himself to that effect,] and that therefore the whole curve must be an 
induction." " Are particular positions to be conceived as points of 
a curve without thinking of the intermediate positions as belonging 
to the same curve?" (Philosophy of Discovery, p. 248.) What proves 
the curve would perhaps be as much the argument of coincidence as 
that of induction ; it appearing to be a moral impossibility that the 
fitting in of so many points in the orbit with the figure of an ellipse 
should be a mere chance, the other -unobserved points not fitting in 
with it. I have mentioned these cases to illustrate the point that 
observation, popularly so called, sometimes involves regular reasoning. 
But though the observation of facts which constitutes the first part of 
induction involves in particular cases reasoning, observation alone is 
all that is required for induction, and this is the main faculty at work 
in this stage. 

NOTE 4, p. 42. 

" The very essence of the whole argument is the invaluable pre- 
servation of the principle of order: not necessarily such as we can 



II] 



Note 4 233 



directly recognise, but the universal conviction of the unfailing sub- 
ordination of everything to some grand principles of law, however 
imperfectly apprehended or realised in our partial conceptions, and 
the successive subordination of such laws to others of still higher 
generality, to an extent transcending our conceptions, and constituting 
the true chain of universal causation, which culminates in the sublime 
conception of the Cosmos. 

" It is in immediate connexion with this enlarged view of universal 
immutable natural order, that I have regarded the narrow notions of 
those who obscure the sublime prospect, by imagining so unworthy 
an idea as that of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of 
the world. 

"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden 
supernatural origination of new species of organised beings in remote 
geological epochs. It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if 
once rightly apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly 
unwarranted by science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and 
inadmissible in philosophy ; while, even in those instances properly 
understood, the real scientific conclusions of the invariable and indis- 
soluble chain of causation stand vindicated in the sublime contempla- 
tions with which they are thus associated. 

" To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essen- 
tial requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of 
this one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting 
the very idea of nature ; — which forms the vital essence of the whole 
of inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences 
from the inductive study of natural causes, which are the indications 
of a supreme intelligence and a moral cause. 

" The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the 
admission of this grand principle. Those who are not prepared to 
embrace it in its full extent, may probably not accept the conclusions : 
but they must be sent back to the school of inductive science, ivhere alone 
it must be independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the 
mind of the student in the first instance. 

" On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and 
general results of inductive science, we see abundant exemplification 
at once of the legitimate objects which fall within the province of 
physical philosophy, and the limits which, from the nature of the 
case, must be imposed on its investigations. We recognise the powers 
of intellect fitly employed in the study of nature, but indicating no 
conclusions beyond nature ; yet pre-eminently leading us to perceive 
in nature, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its laws, 
the indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite arrangement, 
dependence, and connexion in reason." {Powell on the Order of Nature, 
p. 228.) 

" In an age of physical research like the present, all highly culti- 
vated minds and duly advanced intellects have imbibed, more or less, 
the lessons of the inductive philosophy, and have at least in some 
measure learned to appreciate the grand foundation conception 



234 Note 4 [Lect. 

of universal law — to recognise the impossibility even of any two 
material atoms subsisting together without a determinate relation — of 
any action of the one on the other, whether of equilibrium or of 
motion, without reference to a physical cause — of any modification 
whatsoever in the existing conditions of material agents, unless 
through the invariable operation of a series of eternally impressed 
consequences following in some necessary chain of orderly connexion." 
{Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 133.) 

" The enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural world 
cannot but tend powerfully to evince the inconceivableness of 
imagined interruptions of natural order, or supposed suspensions of 
the laws of matter, and of that vast series 01 dependent causation 
which constitutes the legitimate field for the investigation of science, 
whose constancy is the sole warrant for its generalizations." (p. no.) 

" No amount of attestation of innumerable and honest witnesses 
would ever convince any one versed in mathematical and mechanical 
science, that a person had squared the circle or discovered perpetual 
motion. Antecedent credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, 
and enlarged views of the connexion and dependence of truths ; and 
the value of any testimony will be modified or destroyed in different 
degrees to minds differently enlightened." (p. 141.) 

A writer in the Quarterly Review has forcibly pointed out that 
such language as this violates " the very caution prescribed and com- 
manded by the logic of induction, which rigidly confines statements 
of facts to actual experience, refraining from any admixture with 
these of assumption or hypothesis." The " Immutability of the 
Laws of Nature " is, he observes, such an assumption or hypothesis, 
and is therefore an offence against " inductive logic — that logic whose 
nobleness and potency is centred in a rigid discrimination of experi- 
ence from imagination." {Article on the Immutability of Nature, 
1 861.) 

NOTE 5, p. 46. 

Mr. Mill aims at providing induction with a complete logical 
basis, and discards the idea that the uniformity of nature rests upon 
any antecedent ground or assumption in the mind. " I must protest," 
he says, " against adducing as evidence of the truth of a fact in ex- 
ternal nature the disposition, however general, of the human mind to 
believe it. Belief is not 'proof , and does not dispense with the necessity 
of proof ... To demand evidence when the belief is ensured by the 
mind's own laws is supposed to be appealing to the intellect against 
the intellect. But this I apprehend is a misunderstanding of the 
nature of evidence. By evidence is not meant anything and every- 
thing which produces belief. There are many things which generate 



II] Note 5 235 

belief besides evidence : a mere strong association of ideas often 
causes a belief so intense as to be unshaken by experience or argu- 
ment. Evidence is not that which the mind does or must yield to, 
but that which it ought to yield to." (vol. ii. p. 95.) "We could not 
have a more decided announcement that the writer intended to estab- 
lish law in nature, or the belief in the uniformity of nature, upon a 
logical and argumentative as distinguished from an instinctive ground. 
He disproves the latter by another argument : " Were we to suppose 
(what is perfectly possible to imagine) that the present order of the 
universe were brought to an end, and a chaos succeeded in which 
there was no fixed succession of events, and the past gave no assurance 
of the future ; and if a human being were miraculously kept alive to 
witness this change, he surely would soon cease to believe in any unifor- 
mity, the uniformity itself no longer existing. If this is admitted, 
either the belief in uniformity is not an instinct, or it is an instinct con- 
querable, like all other instincts, by acquired knowledge." (vol. i. 

P- 970 

The reply to this argument is, that when the belief in the future 
uniformity of nature is pronounced to be instinctive, it is only pro- 
nounced to be instinctive upon the condition of her past uniformity. 
The belief which is pronounced to be instinctive absolutely, is the 
belief that the unknown will be like the known. It depends there- 
fore upon what the known or past is, what we believe the unknown 
or future will be. If the past has been order, we believe the future 
will be order ; if the past has been chaos, we believe the future will 
be chaos. The instinctive belief which is spoken of is the belief 
according to which the future in our minds instinctively reflects the 
past, whatever that past may be. 

Discarding, then, altogether the instinctive or antecedent ground, as 
the ground of the legitimate belief in the uniformity of nature, Mr. 
Mill proceeds to provide this belief with real evidence, or to place it 
upon a full logical basis. And the first ground which he puts forward 
is that this belief is " verified by experience." " Some believe it," he 
says, "to be a principle which, antecedently to any verification by 
experience, we are compelled by the constitution of our thinking 
faculty to assume as true ;" but he, on the other hand, pronounces 
that this principle both requires and has the verification of experience. 
" The assumption with regard to the course of nature and the order 
of the universe," i.e., the belief in its uniformity, he says, " is an 
assumption involved in every case of induction. And if we consult the 
actual course of nature we find that the assumption is warranted. The 
universe we find is so constituted, that whatever is true in any one 



236 Note 5 [Lect. 

case is true in all cases of a similar description. This universal fact 
is a warrant for all inferences from experience The justifica- 
tion of our belief that the future will resemble the past, is that the 
future does resemble the past : and the logician is bound to demand 
this outward evidence, and not to accept as a substitute for it a sup- 
posed internal necessity." (vol. i. 316 ; v. 2, 97.) 

I am at a loss to understand what Mr. Mill can mean by saying 
that the assumption of the uniformity of nature is "verified by ex- 
perience," "is warranted by a universal fact;" and by saying that 
" the justification of our belief that the future will resemble the past, 
is that the future does resemble the past." If, indeed, I use experi- 
ence in such a sense as to combine it with and include within it an 
instinctive or antecedent ground, that is the ground upon which the 
belief in the uniformity of nature is ordinarily put ; the ground, viz. 
that although such a belief of course implies a past experience, and 
would be impossible without it, the belief is instinctive upon this 
past experience. The sun having risen up to this morning, which is 
past experience, I believe that it will rise to-morrow, which is an in- 
stinctive belief or assumption upon that past experience. But if I use 
the " verification of experience " in distinction to an antecedent or 
instinctive ground, in that case the " verification " of my belief in the 
sun's rising to-morrow "by experience"' can only mean the verifica- 
tion of it by the fact itself of the sun J s rising to-morrow. Such an 
"experimental proof" of induction would indeed convert any in- 
ductive conclusion into a universal proposition ; for a conclusion 
which is "proved'" and " verified" by " experience," as distinguished 
from any " general disposition of the human mind to believe it," is 
undoubtedly an actual and true fact. But such an " experimental 
proof" of induction cannot be stated without an absurdity ; for we 
cannot without a contradiction in terms speak of the subject of induc- 
tive belief being verified by experience when that belief is by the very 
supposition an advance upon our experience : my belief that the sun 
will rise to-morrow cannot be verified by the fact of the sun's rising 
to-morrow, when as yet by the very form of the expression that fact 
has not yet taken place. Such a kind of verification could only be 
expressed by saying, " I believe that the sun has risen to-morrow." 
Whatever amount of experience we may have backward, that experi- 
ence can only verify the belief that preceded it — the belief in those 
particular facts of which that experience was the verification ; that 
past experience cannot possibly verify my belief in a fact which is 
now future : yet this is what Mr. Mill verbally states, — " The justi- 
fication of our belief that the future will resemble the past, is that the 



II] 



Note 5 237 



future does resemble tlie past." That which was once a future fact 
may have become in ten thousand instances a present fact, and, when 
it became present, have resembled the past ; but we cannot possibly 
pronounce that what is now future resembles the past, because the 
future does not now exist. Whatever past verifications there may 
have been of the once future, that which is at this time future cannot 
be included in them ; and for our belief in it we must depend upon 
an antecedent ground or assumption in our minds that the future will 
resemble the past. The order or uniformity of nature could indeed 
be verified by experience, were it a past order or uniformity only ; 
but it is a future order as well ; and the belief respecting that future 
must rest upon an assumption by which we connect that past with 
this future. 

As Mr. Mill, however, advances further in the construction of a 
logical basis for induction, his argumentative phraseology changes, 
and the principle of the uniformity of nature is asserted, instead of 
being " verified by experience" to be " founded on prior generalizations 
or inductions." Of " the fundamental principle or axiom of induction 
that the course of nature is uniform," he says, " it would be a great 
error to offer this large generalization as an explanation of the induc- 
tive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself an instance of 
induction, an induction by no means of the most obvious kind. Far 
from being the first induction we make, it is one of the last. . . . 
This great generalization is itself founded on prior generalizations." 
(vol. i. p. 317.) "The belief we entertain in the universality 
throughout nature of the law of cause and effect [which is the same 
with the order or uniformity of nature] is itself an instance of induc- 
tion ; we arrive at this universal law by generalization from many 
laws of inferior generality." (vol. ii. p. 97.) The general axiom then 
of the uniformity of nature is founded upon a number of particular 
inductions. Upon what are the particular inductions founded ? The 
particular inductions are, according to Mr. Mill, founded upon the 
general axiom. " This assumption with regard to the course of nature 
and the order of the universe is involved in every case of induction." 
(vol. i. p. 316.) But the construction of such a ground of induction 
as this appears to shew that induction does not, rather than that it 
does, rest upon a logical basis. For what is the state of the case ? 
The general assumption of the uniformity of nature rests upon parti- 
cular cases of induction ; those particular cases of induction rest upon 
that general assumption of the uniformity of nature. The large 
generalization rests upon prior generalizations ; the prior generaliza- 
tions upon the large one. But if the two grounds or bases of indue- 



238 Note 5 [Lect 

tion rest upon each other, what is this hut to say that induction as a 
whole is foundation's; that it stands upon no ground of reason. If 
in every case of induction there is an assumption, and that assump- 
tion rests upon those cases of induction ; "both together are argumenta- 
tively suspended in space. 

Mr. Mill of course perceives the objection to which his ground is 
open, and replies ; but instead of shewing that his ground furnishes 
that " proof" or "evidence" with which, he has said, induction cannot 
dispense, he appears to disclaim the very intention of giving such 
proof or evidence at all. " In what sense can a principle which is so 
far from being our earliest induction be regarded as a warrant for all 
others? In the only sense in which, as we have already seen, the 
general propositions which we place at the head of our reasonings 
when we throw them into syllogisms ever contribute to their validity 
.... not contributing at all to prove the conclusion, but being a 
necessary condition of its being proved ; since no conclusion is proved 
for which there cannot be found a true major premiss" (vol. i. p. 
318). The general assumption then of the uniformity of nature has 
only the place in the inductive process of a major premiss in the 
syllogism, which, Mr. Mill says, " is a petitio princvpii" — no real part 
of the argument, but an intermediate halting-place for the mind, 
interposed by an artifice of language between the real premiss and 
the conclusion " (vol. i. p. 225). 

In another passage, however, Mr. Mill seems to promise such an 
explanation of the apparent circular reasoning upon which he has 
based induction as will shew that the circularity in it is only ap- 
parent, and that it is at the bottom real proof. " If we assume the 
universality of the very law which these cases [particularly induc- 
tions] do not at first sight appear to exemplify [i.e. the very law which 
is founded upon them], is not this a petitio principii ? Can we prove 
a proposition by an argument which takes it for granted ? And if 
not, on what evidence does it rest?" (vol. ii. p. 94.) Mr. Mill's ex- 
planation then is, that the large generalization rises upon some parti- 
cular cases, and being gained proves the others. " The more obvious 
of the particular uniformities suggest and give evidence of the general 
uniformity, and the general uniformity once established enables us to 
prove the remainder of the particular uniformities. " (vol. ii. p. 97. 
But this is no answer to the argumentative objection which ha,s been 
urged. For how were the more obvious particular inductions, upon 
which the whole structure rests, themselves made ? By assuming the 
general principle of uniformity—" This is an assumption involved in 
every case of induction" (vol. i. p, 316.) The general principle then 



II] 



Note 5 239 



still remains an assumption ; for those cases which assumed it evi- 
dently did not prove it. 

Again, he reminds us that one part of induction may he founded 
on another and yet may correct that other. The principle of universal 
law or uniformity in nature, though a great philosophical principle, 
he says, is founded upon unscientific and empirical inductions ; for 
the precariousness of this early and loose kind of induction diminishes 
"as the subject-matter of observation widens ;" and the law now 
mentioned is " an empirical law co-extensive with all human experi- 
ence." But the principle of universal law or uniformity once proved 
corrects and improves upon the looser and earlier inductions ; and 
" we substitute for the more fallible forms of the process, an operation 
grounded on the same process in a less fallible form " (vol. ii. p. 98). 
But though it is true that, looking upon induction in its results, one 
part corrects another ; the correction of the 'results of induction has 
nothing to do with the philosophical ground of induction, which Mr. 
Mill still leaves in the state which has been described ; the general 
law of uniformity resting on the particular cases, and the particular 
cases on the general law. 

The representation, then, of the uniformity of nature as being, in 
distinction to an antecedent assumption, " a universal fact," " certain," 
"absolute," "proved ;" the assertion that "the justification of our 
belief that the future will resemble the past is that the future does 
resemble the past ; " this identification of a law of nature with a uni- 
versal proposition falls to the ground, and with it the following state- 
ments : — " We cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet 
believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the 
alleged fact, or believe that we were mistaken in admitting the sup- 
posed law." " If an alleged fact be in contradiction, not to any num- 
ber of approximate generalizations, but to a completed generalization 
grounded on a rigorous induction, it is said to be impossible." " An 
impossibility is that the truth of which would conflict with a com- 
plete induction" (vol. ii. pp. 157, 159, 164). 

It is proper, however, to add, that when Mr. Mill arrives at 
the point that he has to make a statement on the subject of belief 
in miracles, that statement appears not to agree with and carry out 
this account of induction, but to be in opposition to it. He 
says : — 

" But in order that any alleged fact should be contrary to a law of 
causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed 
without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon 
occurrence ; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate 



240 Note 5 [Leot. 

counteracting cause. Now, in the case of an alleged miracle, the 
assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was de- 
feated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting 
cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some 
being who has power over nature ; and in particular of a being whose 
will, being assumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers 
by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to 
counteract them. A miracle (as was justly remarked by Brown) is 
no contradiction to the law of cause and effect, it is a new effect sup- 
posed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the 
adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt ; and 
the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the 
miracle, is the improbability that any such cause existed (vol. ii. 
p. 159). 

This statement then certainly implies that a miracle is not im- 
possible, and admits of being rationally believed. For a miracle is 
pronounced to be possible if there is an adequate cause in counter- 
action to natural causes to account for it : " the interposition of an 
act of the will of some being who has power over nature " is admitted 
to be such an adequate counteracting cause ; and it is implied that 
there is nothing contrary to reason in the belief in such a being. But 
such a statement as to the possibility of a miracle does not agree with 
the previous position which Mr. Mill has laid down ; because he has 
said that a fact in contradiction to a completed induction is impos- 
sible, and we know that a miracle is such a fact. That men, e.g., do 
not after death return to life again is " a completed induction ; " and 
therefore the resurrection of a man after death is a contradiction to a 
" completed induction." It is true that a miracle is not in contradic- 
tion to a law of causation, in the sense of causation by an act of the 
Divine will ; but the law of causation of which Mr. Mill has all 
along spoken, and the contradiction to which he has pronounced to be 
an impossibility, is a law which consists simply in a succession of 
uniform facts ; it is physical law simply, the chain of natural causes, 
which natural causes are only another word for recurrent facts. A 
miracle, though it is not contrary to a law of causation which includes 
the Divine will as a cause, is contrary to this law of natural causation 
or the order of nature. Mr. Mill's test of impossibility has been all 
along a strictly matter-of-fact test — " a completed generalization," a 
" completed induction." In this last statement, however, he adopts 
another test, that viz. of causation absolutely, and refuses to pro- 
nounce upon the impossibility of a fact so long as, though contrary 
to the order of natural causes, it can be referred to an adequate 
counteracting cause. I gladly accept Mr. Mill's statement on the 



II] 



Note 5 241 



subject of belief in miracles, but if this statement is true, Mr. Mill's 
previous language requires correction. 1 

The sense of abstract possibility indeed in Mr. Mill's mind, re- 
vealed by him in various statements in his works, cannot be said to 
be too jealous, or timid, or narrow. This idea, which is cherished by 
him as a philosophical liberty and right, includes in it many results 
so stupendous and overwhelming that no miracle can be compared 
with them. " I am convinced," he says, " that any one accustomed 
to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly exert his faculties for 
this purpose, will, when his imagination has once learned to entertain 
the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving that in some one, for in- 
stance, of the many firmaments into which sidereal astronomy now 
divides the universe, events may succeed one another at random with- 
out any fixed law." (ii. 96.) " In distant parts of the stellar regions, 
where the phenomena may be wholly unlike those with which we 
are acquainted, it would be folly to affirm confidently that this gene- 
ral law [of uniformity] prevails. The uniformity in the succession of 
events, otherwise called the law of causation, must not be received as 
a law of the universe, but of that portion of it only which is within 
the range of our own observation." (p. 104.) It must be remarked 
that this reign of enormity, contradictory at its very root to our order 
of nature, and involving all the miracles, did they take place on this 
earth, which the wildest fancy can even picture to itself, has not, 
according to Mr. Mill's conception, its possible locality in another 
and invisible world, but in this very material universe in which we 
are living ; the distance of this portentous scene from this planet, 
however long, is a certain definite distance. Such conceptions as 
these have subjected Mr. Mill to much criticism, but to whatever 
charge they are open, it is not to the charge of a limited sense of 
possibility. The objection made to miracles is that they are diver- 
gences from the laws of the material world introduced into the mate- 
rial world ; the same persons who would admit any amount of 

1 Mr. Mill's statement of Hume's argument, as only asserting that ' ' no 
evidence can prove a miracle to any one who did not previously believe 
the existence of a Being with supernatural power/' is an incorrect one. 
Hume asserts that the existence of a God makes no difference to his argu- 
ment ; and rightly : because his argument rests simply upon a comparison 
of the respective contradictions to experience in the two facts themselves 
— the truth of the miracle, and the falsehood of the witness ; the former 
cf which two contradictions, he says, is greater than the latter. But if this 
argument is correct, it is equally correct whether a Deity is supposed or 
not. For if experience is our only guide, it is the only test also of the 
will of the Deity ; which will, therefore, is no additional consideration to 
experience, but is identical with and is merged in it. 

Q 



242 Note i [Lect. 

strangeness in another invisible world objecting to the introduction 
of divergence or strangeness into this world. Mr. Mill's conception 
violates this distinction conspicuously, and so involves the great 
point objected to in miracles. 



LECTUEE III. 

NOTE 1, p. 51. 

A miracle is popularly called " a violation of the laws of nature." 
This phrase is objected to by some writers, upon the ground that the 
laws of nature which are spoken of as violated in a miracle, are not 
really violated but continue in force all the time, that force being not 
annihilated but only counteracted by a force or law above them. 

" "We should term the miracle," says Archbishop Trench, " not the 
infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law, neutralized, and 

for the time put out of working order by a higher Continually 

Ave behold in the world around us lower laws held in restraint by 
higher, mechanic by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral ; 
yet we say not, when the lower thus gives place in favour of the 
higher, that there was any violation of law, or that anything con- 
trary to nature came to pass ; rather we acknowledge the law of a 
greater freedom swallowing up the law of a lesser. Thus when I lift 
up my arm, the law of gravitation is not, as far as my arm is con- 
cerned, denied or annihilated ; it exists as much as ever, but is held 
in suspense by the higher law of my will. The chemical laws which 
would bring about decay in animal substances still subsist, even when 
they are checked and hindered by the salt, which keeps those sub- 
stances from corruption." {Notes on the Miracles: Preliminary Essay, 
ch. ii.) 

Upon the same ground Mr. Llewellyn Davies objects to the de- 
scription of a miracle as " a suspension of the laws of nature :" — 

" TTe do not say that the knowledge and the will of man when they 
come into play suspend the laws of nature. If I hold a stone in my 
hand, or set a "magnet so as to hold up a heavy piece of iron, the law of 
gravity acts as regularly as if the stone or the iron fell to the ground. 
If the skill of a physician cures a patient of a fever, no physiological 
law is suspended any more than if the patient were left alone to die. 
But the human knowledge and will do effect results. Suppose them 
withdrawn, and things would be very different from what they are. 
So with the Divine Will We ought not to say that any operation 
of it, however miraculous, suspends the laws of nature." (Signs of tin 
Kingdom of Heaven, p. 37. 



Ill] 



Note i 243 



Dr. Heurtley objects to the term "violation," but not to the term 
" suspension : ''• — 

" A miracle is a violation neither of the laws of matter nor of any 
other laws of nature. It is simply the intervention of a Being pos- 
sessing or endued with superhuman power, — an intervention which, 
though it temporarily modifies or suspends the operation of the laws 
ordinarily in operation in the world, is yet in itself exercised in strict 
accordance with the law of that Being's nature, or superindued nature, 
by whom it is exercised." {Replies to Essays and Reviews, p. 148.) 

The writer of an article in the Christian Eemembrancer (October 
1863), objects to both terms, " suspension" and " contradiction : " — 

" An important inquiry still remains, viz. whether our definition 
of a miracle as an event with a supernatural cause is a sufficient one ? 
In later times, as we know, this definition has not been thought suffi- 
cient ; but another idea has been added to it, viz. ' contrary to nature/ 
' suspension of a natural law or cause.' The inquiry is a most im- 
portant one ; for, if we adopt this addition, we lay the miracle open, 
as we shall see, to very formidable objections. In addressing our- 
selves to the solution of this point, the first thing to be ascertained 
is, whether this idea necessarily enters into our conception of a 
miracle. A little consideration will shew that it does not. Any 
event clearly ascertained to have a supernatural cause would un- 
doubtedly be regarded as miraculous, even though not contrary to 
nature. The stone, for instance, rolled away from the door of the 
sepulchre we regard as a miracle, on the simple ground that it was 
done by angels. Yet it cannot be alleged that that event was con- 
trary to nature, or that it involved a suspension of a law of nature. 
The same act might have been performed by man or by mechanical 
power, and in that case it would have been perfectly natural. We 
thus see that the distinguishing mark of the miracle, to our mind, is, 
not contrary to nature, but having a supernatural cause. "We see, 
too, that the supposition of the suspension of the law of nature does 
not apply to all miracles. It does not apply to a miracle considered 
as a miracle. Consequently, if it does apply to some miracles it 
must be accidental to them." 

By what particular expression we denote the difference from the 
order of nature involved in a miracle, whether we do or do not call 
it a violation of natural law, a suspension, &c, is a question of lan- 
guage and no more, so long as we strictly understand that the natural 
laws to which these terms " violation " and " suspension " are applied 
are one set of laws only, viz. that which comes within the cognizance 
of our experience. The effect of these laws is in the particular in- 
stance of a miracle hindered or prevented ; something takes place 
which would not take place if these laws alone were in operation. 



244 Note i [Lect. 

Whether this prevention of the effect, or this other tffict, be called a 
violation of the law or not, is immaterial, as far as regards the par- 
ticular law in question ; it makes no difference whether we say that 
that law is suspended, or continues in force but is counteracted. The 
phrase " violation or suspension of law " in its ordinary signification, 
has reference only to the particular material laws which are concerned 
in the case, and therefore as commonly used, it does not appear to be 
objectionable. What is of importance is that, if a miracle be a viola- 
tion or suspension of particular laws, there are other higher laws of 
which it is an instance, at the very time that it is a violation or sus- 
pension of the lower ones : and that a miracle is thus not against law 
upon the scale of the whole of the universe ; the giving way of lower 
law to higher being itself an instance of law, the violation of the 
particular being the observance of the whole. 

" What in each of these cases is wrought may be against one par- 
ticular law, that law being contemplated in its isolation, and rent 
away from the complex of laws, whereof it forms only a part. But 
no law stands thus alone ; and it is not against but rather in harmony 
with the system of laws ; for the law of those laws is, that when 
powers come into conflict, the weaker shall give way to the stronger, 
the lower to the higher. In the miracle this world of ours is drawn 
into and within a higher order of things ; laws are then at work in 
the world, which are not the laws of its fallen condition, for they are 
laws of a mightier range and higher perfection ; and as such they 
claim to make themselves felt, and to have the pre-eminence and the 
predominance which are rightly their own." (Trench, Notes on the 
Miracles : Preliminary Essay, ch. iii.) 

Bishop Fitzgerald expresses the same idea with some philosophical 
additions : — 

"Again, when miracles are described as * interferences with the 
laws of nature,' this description makes them appear improbable to 
many minds, from their not sufficiently considering that the laws of 
nature interfere with one another; and that we cannot get rid of 
' interferences' upon any hypothesis consistent with experience. 
When organization is superinduced upon inorganic matter, the laws of 
inorganic matter are interfered with and controlled ; when animal 
life comes in there are new interferences ; when reason and conscience 
are superadded to will, we have a new class of controlling and inter- 
fering powers, the laws of which are moral in their character. In- 
telligences of pure speculation, who could do nothing but observe, and 
reason, surveying a portion of the universe — such as the greater part 
of the materal universe may be — wholly destitute of living inhabi- 
tants, might have reasoned that such powers as active beings possess 
were incredible, that it was incredible that the Great Creator would. 



Ill] 



Note 2 245 



suffer the majestic uniformity of laws which He was constantly 
maintaining through boundless space and innumerable worlds, to be 
controlled and interfered with at the caprice of such a creature as 
man. Yet we know by experience that God has enabled us to con- 
trol and interfere with the laws of external nature for our own pur- 
poses; nor does this seem less improbable beforehand (but rather 
more), than that He should Himself interfere with those laws for 
our advantage." (Article on Miracles; Dictionary of the Bible, p. 376.) 

NOTE 2, p. 64. 

"No extent of physical investigation can warrant the denial of a 
distinct order of impressions and convictions wholly different in kind, 
and affecting that yportion of our compound constitution which we 
term the moral and spiritual. 

" That impressions of a spiritual kind, distinct from any which 
positive reason can arrive at, may be made on the internal faculties 
of the soul, is an admission which can contravene no truth of our 
-constitution, mental or bodily. Nor can it be reasonably disputed 
on any physical ground that, under peculiar conditions, such spiritual 
impressions or intimations, in a peculiarly exalted sense, may be 
afforded to some highly-gifted individuals, and worthily ascribed to 
a Divine source, thus according with the idea we attach to the term 
i revelation.' 

" On other grounds it may perhaps be argued, that such a mode of 
communicating high spiritual truth is suitable to the truths com- 
municated ; that spiritual things are exhibited by spiritual means ; 
moral doctrines conveyed through the fitting channel of the moral 
faculties of man. But all we are at present concerned to maintain is, 
that both the substance and the mode of the disclosure are thus wholly 
remote from anything to which physical difficulties can attach, or 
which comes under the province of sense or intellect. 

" But then, in accordance with its nature, the objects to which such 
a Tevelation refers must be properly and exclusively those belonging to 
moral and spiritual conceptions: whether as related to what we experi- 
ence within ourselves, or pointing to and supposing a more extended 
and undefined world of spiritual, unseen, eternal existence, above and 
beyond all that is matter of sense or reason, of which science gives no in- 
timation — apart from the world of material existence, of ordinary 
human action, or even of metaphysical speculation, wholly the 
domain and creation of faith and inspiration. Such a world, it is 
acknowledged, is disclosed by Christianity as the subject of a peculiar 
revelation, presenting objects which are wholly and exclusively those 
of faith, not of sense or knowledge. 

" Thus it follows, in regard to revelation in general, that so far as 
its objects are properly those which are in their nature restricted to 
purely religious and spiritual truths, we must acknowledge that in 
these, its more characteristic and essential elements, it can involve 
nothing which can come into contact or collusion with the truth of physi- 



246 Note 2 [Lect. 

cat science or inductive uniformity ; though wholly extraneous to the 
world of positive knowledge, it can imply nothing at variance with any 
part of it, and thus can involve us in no difficulties on physical 
grounds. 

" Thus, a purely spiritual revelation, as such, stands on quite dis- 
tinct grounds from the idea of physical interruption. Yet this dis- 
tinction has been continually lost sight of, while it is of the most 
primary importance for vindicating the acceptance of such revelation 
as the source of spiritual truth " (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 276). 

" Men formerly, and even at present under metaphysical influences, 
have cavilled at mysteries, but acquiesced in miracles. Under a more 
positive system, the most enlightened are the first to admit spiritual 
mysteries as matters of faith, utterly beyond reason, though they find 
deviations from physical truth irreconcilable to science" (Ibid. p. 
292). 

" If in what has preceded no reference has been made to such high 
mysteries as the Trinity, the union of the Divine and human natures 
in Christ, the Atonement by His death, the influence of the Holy 
Spirit, or Sacramental grace, it is because these and the like tenets of 
the Church do not properly fall under the present discussion ; since 
though in some few points touching upon material things — on the 
human existence and death of Christ, and on the nature of man — yet 
they involve no consideration of a physical kind, infringing on the 
visible order of the natural world, and thus cannot be open to any 
difficulties of the kind here contemplated : in fact, all the objections 
which have been raised against them are of a metaphysical, moral, or 
philological nature. 

" But if, in other cases, the highest doctrines are essentially con- 
nected with the narrative of miracles, we have seen that the most 
earnest believers contemplate the miracle by the light of the doctrine, 
and both solely with the eye of faith 

" Thus the resurrection of Christ is emphatically dwelt upon, not 
in its physical letter, but in its doctrinal spirit ; not as a physiological 
phenomenon, but as the corner-stone of Christian faith and hope, 
the type of spiritual life here, and the assurance of eternal life here- 
after. 

" So, in like manner, the transcendent mysteries of the Incarna- 
tion and the Ascension are never alluded to at all by the Apostles in 
a historical or material sense, but only so far as they are involved in 
points of spiritual doctrine, and as objects of faith; as connected with 
the Divine manifestation of the ' Word made flesh/ ' yet without sin,' 
— with the inscrutable work ot redemption on earth and the unseen 
intercession in heaven — with the invisible dispensations of the gift of 
grace from above, and with the hidden things of the future, which 
' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man,' 
with the predicted return of Christ to judge the world, and the eternal 
triumph of His heavenly kingdom. 

" Ajid in this spiritualised sense has the Christian Church in all 
ages acknowledged these Divine mysteries and miracles, 'not of sight, 



Ill] 



Note 3 247 



but of faith/ — not expounded by science, but delivered in traditional 
formularies, — celebrated in festivals and solemnities, — by sacred 
rites and symbols, — embodied in the creations of art, and proclaimed 
by choral harmonies ; — through all which the spirit of faith adores 
the ' great mystery of godliness, — manifested in the flesh, — justified 
in the spirit, seen of angels, — preached unto the Gentiles, — believed 
on in the world, — received up to glory ' " (Ibid. p. 456). 



NOTE 3, p. 68. 

" L'unite jointe a l'infini ne l'augmente de rien, non plus qu'un 
pied a une mesure infinie. Le fini s'aneantit en presence de l'infini, 
et devient un pur neant. Ainsi notre esprit devant Dieu ; ainsi notre 
justice devant la justice divine 

" Nous connaissons qu'il y a un infini et ignorons sa nature, comme 
nous savons qu'il est faux que les nombres soient finis ; done il est 
vrai qu'il y a un infini en nombre, mais nous ne savons ce qu'il est. 
II est faux qu'il soit pair, il est faux qu'il soft impair ; car, en ajoutant 
l'unite, il ne change point de nature : cependant e'est un nombre, et 
tout nombre est pair ou impair ; il est vrai que cela s'entend de tous 
nombres finis 

" Nous connaissons l'existence de l'infini et ignorons sa nature, 
parce qu'il a etendue comme nous, mais non pas des bornes comme 
nous" (Pascal, ed. Fougeres, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164). 

" The idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all 
those things we apply to it. When we would think of infinite space 
or duration, we, at first step, usually make some very large idea, as, 
perhaps, of million of ages or miles, which possibly we double and 
multiply several times. All that we thus amass together in our 
thoughts is positive, and the assemblage'of a great number of positive 
ideas of space or duration. But what still remains beyond this we 
have no more a positive distinct notion of, than a mariner has of the 
depth of the sea where, having let down a large portion of his sound- 
ing-line, he reaches no bottom ; whereby he knows the depth to be 
so many fathoms and more, but how much that more is he hath no 
distinct notion at all ; and could he always supply new line and find 
the plummet always sink, without ever stopping, he would be some- 
thing in the posture of the mind reaching after a complete and posi- 
tive idea of infinity. In which case, let this line be ten or ten thousand 
fathoms long, it equally discovers what is beyond it, and gives only 
this confused and comparative idea, that this is not all, but one may 
yet go further. So much as the mind comprehends of any space, it 
has a positive idea of ; but in endeavouring to make it infinite, it 
being always enlarging, always advancing, the idea is still imperfect 

and incomplete For to say a man has a positive clear 

idea of any quantity, without knowing how great it is, is as reasonable 
as to say he has the positive clear idea of the number of the sands on 
the seashore, who kuows not how many there be, but only that they 



248 Note 4 [Lkct. 

are more than twenty So that what lies beyond out 

positive idea towards infinity, lies in obscurity ; and as the in- 
determinate confusion of a negative idea, wherein I know I neither 
do nor can comprehend all I would, it being too large for a finite 
and narrow capacity." (Locke On Human Understanding, bk. ii. ch. 
17). 

" Prseterea, si jam finitum constituatur 
Omne, quod est, spatium, si quis procurrat ad oras 
Ultimus extremas, jaciatque volatile telum, 
Id validis utrum contortum viribus ire, 
Quo fuerit missum, mavis, longeque volare, 
An prohibere aliquid censes, obstareque, posse ? 
Ulterutrum fatearis enim sumasque, necesse est, 
Quorum utrum que tibi effugium praecludit, et omne 
Cogit ut exempta concedas fine patere. 
Nam sive est aliquid, quod prohibeat officiatque, 
Quo minu' quo missum est veniat, finique locet se ; 
Sive foras fertur, non est ea fini' profecto. 
Hoc pacto sequar, atque, oras ubicumque locaris 
Extremas, quseram, quid telo denique fiat. 
Eiet, uti nusquam possit consistere finis ; 
Effugiumque fugae prolatet copia semper." 

Lucretius, i. 962. 

NOTE 4, p. 69. 

One particular argument of Bishop Butler in opposition to the pre- 
sumption against miracles is drawn from the fact of creation, as being 
itself a miracle, or of the nature of one, and so a precedent for 
miracles ; there being no presumption, when a power different from 
the course of nature was exerted in the first placing of man here, 
against that power going on to exert itself further in a revelation. 

" There is no presumption, from analogy, against some operations 
which we should now call miraculous ; particularly none against a 
revelation at the beginning of the world ; nothing of such presump- 
tion against it, as is supposed to be implied or expressed in the word 
miraculous. Eor a miracle, in its very notion, is relative to a course 
of nature ; and implies somewhat different from it, considered as 
being so. Now, either there was no course of nature at the time 
which we are speaking of, or, if there were, we are not acquainted 
what the course of nature is upon the first peopling of worlds. And 
therefore the question, whether mankind had a revelation made to 
them at that time, is to be considered, not as a question concerning 
a miracle, but as a common question of fact. And we have the like 
reason, be it more or less, to admit the report of tradition concerning 
this question, and concerning common matters of fact of the same 
antiquity ; for instance, what part of the earth was first peopled. 



Ill] 



Note 4 249 



" Or thus : when mankind was first placed in this state, there was 
a power exerted totally different from the present course of nature. 
Now, whether this power, thus wholly different from the present 
course of nature, for we cannot properly apply to it the word mir- 
aculous; whether this power stopped immediately after it had made 
man, or went on, and exerted itself farther in giving him a revelation, 
is a question of the same kind as whether an ordinary power exerted 
itself in such a particular degree and manner or not. 

" Or suppose the power exerted in the formation of the world be 
considered as miraculous, or rather, be called by that name ; the case 
will not be different : since it must be acknowledged that such a 
power was exerted. For supposing it acknowledged, that our Saviour 
spent some years in a course of working miracles : there is no more 
presumption, worth mentioning, against His having exerted this mira- 
culous power, in a certain degree greater, than in a certain degree less ; 
in one or two more instances, than in one or two fewer ; in this, than 
in another manner." (Analogy, part ii. ch. ii.) 

This argument does not appear to be interfered with by anything 
which science has brought to light since Butler's time. It assumes 
indeed a " beginning of the world," and scientific authorities state 
that there are no evidences in nature of a beginning. 1 But supposing 
this to be the case, science still does not assert that there is no begin- 
ning, but only deny that the examination of nature exhibits proof 
that there is one. 

Science would indeed appear to be in the reason of the case in- 

1 "It has been already observed that strict science offers no evidence of 
the commencement of the existing order of the universe. It exhibits indeed 
.1 wonderful succession of changes, but however far back continued, and of 
however vast extent, and almost inconceivable modes of operation, still 
only changes; occurring in recondite order, however little as yet disclosed, 
and in obedience to physical laws and causes, however as yet obscure and 
hidden from us. Yet in all this there is no beginning properly so called ; 
no commencement of existence when nothing existed before : no creation 
in the sense of origination out of non-existence, or formation out of 
nothing. The nebular theory may be adopted in cosmology, or the 
development hypothesis in palaeontology — or any other still more ambi- 
tious systems reaching back in imagination into the abysses of past time ; 
yet these are only the expositions of ideas theoretical and imaginary, but 
still properly within the domain of physical order, and even by them we 
reach no proper commencement of existence. More than half a century 
ago, Dr. Hutton announced the first ideas of a natural geology, and boldly 
declared, ' In the economy of the world I can find no traces of a beginning, 
no prospect of an end, ' and all the later progress of science has pointed, as 
from its nature it must do, to the same conclusion, nor can any other 
branch of science help us farther back than geology. In a word, geology 
(as Sir C. Lyell has so happily expressed it) is ' the autobiography of the 
earth,' but, like other autobiographies, it cannot go back to the birth." 
(Powell's Order of Nature, p. 250. ) 



250 Note 4 [Lect. 

competent to pronounce that there was no beginning in nature ; 
because however far back she may trace the history of the formation 
of the material world, she can only assert what she has discovered, 
viz. the farthest point backward reached ; she cannot assert what 
succession lies beyond the last ascertained point, still less that this 
succession is infinite. It may be said that when the process of re- 
search has gone on for a long time, and when it always has been 
found hitherto that however far back we have gone, there has been 
something discovered farther back still ; the presumption is raised that 
this retrogression could be seen to go on for ever, if we could only 
continue to trace it. But this is no more than a presumption, which 
ought to give way to other considerations, if there are such of a 
weighty and urgent kind, for believing the contrary. 

The value indeed of the fact that there is no scientific evidence of 
a beginning in nature as a proof there is no beginning, must depend 
on the consideration whether there would or could be scientific evi- 
dence of a beginning, supposing there to he one. For if, supposing 
a beginning, no search or analysis of nature might or could afford 
evidence of it, in that case no proof of the want of a beginning is 
furnished by the absence of scientific evidence for one. Evidence of 
a beginning, we must remember, is only another word for our being 
able to trace and find one ; that is to say, evidence is only another 
expression for our faculties. Have we then the faculties for dis- 
covering by analysis a beginning in nature ? In reply to this ques- 
tion it may be worth remarking, that we cannot be sure of the extent 
to which our faculties go in investigating nature ; that we do not 
know the degree of their strength and subtlety, nor therefore, on this 
account, what conclusion is to be drawn from their failure. But, 
indeed, there appears to be another and a stronger reason to allege 
why we cannot draw the conclusion of there being no beginning, 
from our not finding one, or from there being no evidences of one ; 
for can there in the nature of the case be evidences and proofs 
from analysis of a beginning in nature, when all that analysis can 
ever possibly discover is the existence of some earlier fact than all 
hitherto ascertained ones, which is not a beginning, and no evidence 
of one. 1 

1 Mr. Baden Powell supposes that he enhances his statement of fact 
that science contains no evidence of a beginning by the addition that to 
"imagine a beginning is altogether out of the domain of science :" — which 
is the same as supposing that the testimony of a witness that a fact did 
not take place, is strengthened by the circumstance that, not being on the 
spot he could not have seen it if it had taken place. 

That we cannot however in material nature by physical analysis dis- 



Ill] 



Note 4 251 



Science then is not opposed to the idea of creation, because all that 
is essential to the integral notion of creation is a beginning, and a 
beginning is not and cannot be disproved by science. Science is 
opposed indeed to a certain conception of creation, to creation con- 
ceived as an instantaneous operation, as an act of the Almighty will 
calling at once and in a moment by its fiat the whole world, material, 
animal, and rational, into existence, without graduation, progression, 
succession of steps. But whether creation takes place in this way or 
by a long and extended series of stages commencing with the lowest 
forms of organic nature, and terminating in the existing result, is 
altogether irrelevant to the idea of creation, for which all that is 
requisite is a beginning — which science does not disprove. The 
researches of science farther and farther backward, raise indeed, as 
has been said, a kind of impression in the mind of the absolute inter- 
minableness of the succession of causes. But such an impression 
cannot be urged as any proof that this series is interminable, 
because we possess no knowledge whatever of what exists beyond 
the last discovered fact ; so that in the nature of the case the con- 
clusion that this series is interminable, i.e. that this world has 
existed from all eternity, and is uncreated, cannot be pronounced 
by science. 

Upon whatever ground, then, the existence of a Creator, and Gover- 
nor of the world was assumed in the " Analogy," upon the same it 
may be assumed now, and with the assumption of a creation goes the 
argument respecting miracles from the creation. 

Again, the part of Butler's argument relating to the particular 
miracle of a revelation to man, supposes, in the mode in which it is 
put, that mankind was placed in this world at the beginning of this 
world ; and these two phrases, " mankind being first placed in this 
state," and "the beginning" or "formation of the world," are used in 
the same meaning : a supposition which is opposed to recent science. 
But this supposition makes no difference to Butler's argument so long 
as the former of these two events, i.e. the first rise of the human race, 

cover a beginning, is not inconsistent with that beginning admitting of 
legitimate proof when we include in nature the order of intelligent beings, 
and apply to nature so understood certain principles of reasoning inherent 
in the very constitution of our minds. Because we conclude from the 
existence of the universe some self-existent being, we conclude from the 
order of intelligent beings in the universe, and the appearances of design 
in it, the intelligence of that Self-existent Being ; and we conclude from 
the Original Being being intelligent, and matter not, that the material 
world cannot be that Original being, i.e. must have a beginning. (Clarke s 
Demonstration, Prop, viii.) 



252 Note 4 [Lect. 

whether or not contemporaneous with the other, i.e. the beginning of 

the world, is in itself correctly described in the argument; for if 
" when mankind was first placed in this state there was a power 
exerted totally different from the present course of nature," the argu- 
ment correctly proceeds, " whether this power stopped, or went on," 
&c. But that the power exerted upon the occasion of the first rise 
of mankind was extraordinary is not disproved or contradicted by 
modern science ; for all that modern science has ascertained is, that 
man came in subsequently to a long succession of irrational species ; 
but that there was a preceding succession of irrational species does 
not make the introduction of the human species any the less, when it 
took place, a new fact in the world, indicating the exertion of " a 
power totally different from the course of nature ; " both from that 
course of nature which was going on at the time, when man as yet 
did not exist, and from the present course of nature, when we only 
see his continuance, not his beginning. 

Taking the facts of science, indeed, as they stand, and abstracted 
from any hypothesis respecting them, the introductions of all new 
species were severally " exertions of a power different from the course 
of nature." These species may be said indeed to constitute a succes- 
sion or a series, and nature in the successive introduction of them may 
be said to exhibit marks of a plan or programme. But a mere succes- 
sion of events does not of itself constitute an order or course of nature ; 
that depends on the mode or continuity of the succession. If there 
are long breaks in the chain, and if these several introductions or be- 
ginnings of new forms of life take place at vast and irregular intervals, 
embracing lengths of intervening time almost transcending our con- 
ception, these several new introductions would no more form an order 
of nature, than particular instances of resurrection after death, at in- 
tervals of hundreds or thousands of years, since the creation of man- 
kind would form a law of resurrection. These several introductions 
of new life would still be each of them a change in the order of nature 
existing at the time of their respectively taking place ; and, inasmuch 
as everything that is produced must have a cause, they would be each 
the exertion of power different from the course of nature, then and 
now. Such a progress of creation, indeed, as that of which Mr. 
Darwin has set forth the hypothesis, would be inconsistent with any 
event belonging to that progress being different from the order of 
nature ; because the order of nature and creation would then be iden- 
tical ; the formation of new species would be a process always going 
on in all its stages, earlier or later, according to the particular in- 
stances; and the production of each new species, as each was pro- 



Ill] 



Note 4. 253 



duced, would be only so slight an advance npon the previous step, 
that it would not be a difference from, but only an instance of, a con- 
stantly changing and advancing order of nature. The miraculous 
stage indeed, if any, would be not that of creation, which was a con- 
tinuous order of nature, but the present era of the world, when this 
order of nature has stopped. Mr. Darwin's hypothesis supplies the 
links and fills up the chasms in the progress of creation. But with- 
out anything to fill up the immense chasms and breaks in the order 
of creation as it stands, the new species as they make their appearance 
in the record before us are entirely new and original phenomena, 
starting up whole, at incalculable intervals from each other. 

Nor — though it may be hardly worth while making the observation 
— can any " creational law" which does not fill up these voids, but 
leaves them standing as they are, make any difference in the character 
of these phenomena. A " creational law" which coexists with such 
gaps and breaks can only be a theory of Divine action, a conception 
of the mind, not a law of nature ; having the same relation to the 
productions of new species that Mr. Babbage's law of miracles has to 
miracles : a law which, as I observed in Lecture VI., does not touch 
the miraculous character of miracles. Secondary causes in order to 
constitute an order of nature must be visible ; in the absence of which 
visibility their results are still anomalous and strange facts. The 
philosopher, however, when he speaks of a creational law, or " a con- 
tinuously operative secondary creational power," x only means the 
hypothesis that there is, though unascertained, a law of nature in this 
department, or that new facts constituting an adequate continuity of 
succession will be discovered. 

The " first placing of man in this world," however, was a change in 
the order of nature so different in kind from all previous changes, and 
all previous animal progress, that even supposing an order of nature 
up to his introduction, that introduction of him was still " the exer- 
tion of a power different from that order of nature." Of this new 
phenomenon, then, Sir Charles Lyell says, — " In our attempt to ac- 
count for the origin of species we find ourselves brought face to face 
with the working of a law of development of so high an order as to 
stand nearly in the same relation as the Deity Himself to man's finite 
understanding ; a law capable of adding new and powerful causes, 
such as the moral and intellectual faculties of the human race, to a 
system of nature which had gone for millions of years without the 
intervention of an analogous cause." {Antiquity of Man, ch. xxiii.) 

To the hypothesis of a creational law made in this statement, I 
1 Owen's Palaeontology, p. 444. 



254 Note 4 [Lect. 

apply the remarks made above. But Sir Charles Lyell advances a 
further step, and while acknowledging the mystery of the origin of 
man, makes a cautious attempt to bring that mystery within the 
limits of a class and order of known phenomena, which have come 
into observation in the actual present course of nature, and within the 
region of human history and tradition. 

" The inventors of useful arts, the poets and prophets of the early 
stages of a nation's growth, the promulgators of new systems of reli- 
gion, ethics, and philosophy, or of new codes of laws, have often been 
looked upon as messengers from heaven, and after their death have 
had divine honours paid to them, while fabulous tales have been told 
of the prodigies which accompanied their birth. Nor can we wonder 
that such notions have prevailed when we consider what important 
revolutions in the moral and intellectual world such leading spirits 
have brought about ; and when we reflect that mental as well as phy- 
sical attributes are transmissible by inheritance, so that we may pos- 
sibly discern in such leaps the origin of the superiority of certain 
races of mankind. In our own time, the occasional appearance of 
such extraordinary mental powers may be attributed to atavism ; but 
there must have been a beginning to the series of such rare and ano- 
malous events 

" To say that such leaps constitute no interruption to the ordinary 
course of nature, is more than we are warranted in affirming. In the 
case of the occasional birth of an individual of superior genius, there 
is certainly no break in the regular genealogical succession ; and when 
all the mists of mythological fiction are dispelled by historical criti- 
cism, when it is acknowledged that the earth did not tremble at the 
nativity of the gifted infant, and that the face of heaven was not full 
of fiery shapes, still a mighty mystery remains unexplained, and it is 
the order of the phenomena, and not their cause, which we are able to 
refer to the usual course of nature." (Antiquity of Man, ch. xxiv.) 

Such genealogical leaps then having, as the writer supposes, actually 
taken place in the intellectual nature of mankind, within the region 
of historical tradition, — which though it has imparted to its descrip- 
tions the shape of popular poetry and imagination, has still preserved 
in them the substance of true facts, — human nature he conceives to 
have been a leap of the same kind ; only that instead of being a tran- 
sition from lower man to higher man, it was a transition from the 
brute to the man. " If in conformity with the theory of progression, 
we believe mankind to have risen slowly from a rude and humble 
starting-point, such leaps may have successively introduced not only 
higher and higher forms and grades of intellect, but at a much remoter 
period may have cleared at one bound the space which separated the 
highest stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals 



Ill] Note 4 255 

from the first and lowest form of improveable reason manifested by 
man." 

But in the first place, supposing that advances in the scale of 
humanity have taken place by physical transmission, are differences 
in the scale of humanity parallel cases to the difference between the 
man and the brute ? Sir C. Lyell states his belief that man is an im- 
mortal being and a subject of moral probation, in which respects he 
supposes him to differ from the brute. But is any difference in the 
scale of humanity parallel to a difference between being and not 
being immortal, and between being and not being a subject of moral 
probation ? And therefore is any ascent by a physical medium to a 
higher level in the human scale a precedent for the animal " clearing 
at a bound" by this medium the awful chasm which separates an im- 
mortal being from a perishing one, and the animal state from a state 
of moral probation ? 

In the next place, is there any evidence even of differences in the 
scale of humanity having taken place from this cause, i.e., by physical 
transmission 1 any evidence that great and leading men who made 
their appearance in the early ages of society transmitted their own 
superior faculties by physical descent, and that a permanent rise in 
the subsequent intellectual level of mankind was produced by the 
operation of a genealogical law? Historical tradition, indeed, speaks 
of heroes and legislators who rose from time to time in the first ages 
of the world, and developed and improved the social and intellectual 
condition of the nations to which they belonged by education, by new 
codes and institutions, by new arts and inventions ; but not of men 
who raised the intellect of mankind and founded " the superiority of 
certain races " by the natural transmission of their own higher quali- 
ties of mind, which thus became the hereditary property and new 
nature of posterity. Sir C. Lyell admits indeed that such facts as 
these "have a mighty mystery unexplained in them," and that 
though the facts themselves " are to be referred to the usual course 
of nature," " their cause lies wholly beyond us ;" that is to say, he does 
not deprive the course of nature of mystery, but he conceives never- 
theless, that the leap from animal to human nature is paralleled by 
facts which have appeared in the existing course of nature. Neither 
history, however, nor tradition discloses such facts as Sir C. Lyell 
needs for the purpose of his parallel. We see indeed genealogical 
ascents of intellect, but those ascents are not permanent, and found 
no new intellectual nature : for the son having risen above the intel- 
lectual level of his father, his son returns back to the lower stage. 
Again, we see permanent ascents in the intellect of man, but those 



256 Note 5 [Lect. 

ascents are not genealogical ; they are not produced by physical 
transmission, hut by education, by civilization, and instruction in the 
arts of life. Human nature, before and after the rise of the great 
and the wise teachers who have appeared at different epochs, was the 
same ; only in its former state uninstructed, in the latter enlightened 
by new truths and discoveries. Permanent ascents gained by physi- 
cal inheritance are the facts which Sir C. Lyell needs for the purpose 
of his parallel ; but these do not present themselves. 



NOTE 5, p. 70, 

It is not perhaps sufficiently considered that, whatever criterion 
we adopt of the lightness or wrongness of actions, i.e., what makes 
actions right or wrong, the particular standard we apply to the 
actions does not affect the question of the principle of " right," or 
moral obligation being necessary to bind those actions upon the 
individual. Thus the standard of expediency applied to actions is 
perhaps popularly supposed to conflict and to dispense with the 
principle of moral obligation in the individual ; the notion being that, 
because expediency is the criterion of the actions, therefore the 
actions cannot be performed in obedience to the moral sense or sense 
of right, but because they are expedient. But in truth the standard 
of expediency no more dispenses with the sense of moral obligation 
in the individual than any other standard, nor is it correct to conceive 
that if actions are performed because they are expedient, therefore 
they are not performed under a sense of moral obligation; because 
after the criterion has done its part and fixed upon the actions on 
account of their expediency, the question still remains, Under what 
obligation am I to do what is expedient, what conduces to general 
happiness ? Unless this additional step can be made out, the actions 
may be proved to be ever so useful and advantageous to the com- 
munity, but the link which connects them with the duty of the 
individual is wanting. 

The system of Bentham is defective in this important link — the 
medium between the community and the individual, by which what 
is useful to the community becomes binding upon the individual. He 
gives with great copiousness of statement his definition of right and 
wrong in actions, viz., their being advantageous or disadvantageous 
to the whole social body, including the individual himself. " Only so 
far as it produces happiness or misery can an act be properly called 
virtuous or vicious." (Deontology, vol. i. p. 141.) " Will clamouring 
for 'ought' or 'ought not/ that perpetual jpetitio principii, stand in 



Ill] Note 5 257 

the stead of utility ? Men may wear out the air with sonorous and 
unmeaning words ; those words will not act upon the mind ; nothing 

will act upon it but the apprehensions of pleasure and pain 

Avow then that what is called duty to oneself is but prudence, and 
what is called duty to others is effective benevolence." (Introduction 
to Deontology, vol. ii.) But supposing this criterion of Tightness in 
actions themselves to be adopted, viz., their producing happiness, the 
question still remains, "Why must I perform these actions? what 
have I to do with the happiness of others V 1 If the principle of 
" ought " then is admitted, and the sense of " ought " allowed to exist 
in our minds, there is a tie which binds the individual to society. 
He cannot neglect the happiness of others without self-reproach, and 
without the right of others to reproach him. But without this sense 
of " ought " how does the matter stand ? A certain class of actions 
are attended by most valuable results, and it is undoubtedly highly 
for the interest of the community that they should be performed. 
But all that is by the very profession proved is the interest of the 
community. What difference does it make in the individual, not 
doing them ? Is he himself at all in a different state whether he does 
them or not ? Why should he reproach himself, what right have 
others to reproach him, if he does not do them ? Without the sense 
of " ought " in the individual there is a large amount of human hap- 
piness laid before us as the result of certain actions, but there is 
nothing to bind the individual to those actions, or make him respon- 
sible for that happiness. Society is lucky, and is to be congratulated 
upon its good fortune, if it obtains such a class of actions from him ; 
but society cannot say, ' You ought to do them,' for there is no such 
thing as the principle or sense of " ought." If he has not done them, 
all that can be said is that he has not done them — a fact which is no 
more a reflection upon him than the omission of anything else which 
was not incumbent upon him. Without the principle of " ought" to 
supplement the criterion of expediency, the virtuousness of an action 
is identical with certain advantageous effects, and means these effects, 
and has no other meaning. But these effects are wholly outside the 
individual agent, and do not affect him in the slightest degree as 
attaching any quality to him, or making any difference in his inward 
condition. Praise or blame can only attach to him in the sense in 
which these terms must be used and to which they must be confined 
in this philosophy, viz., as the assertion of one or another set of effects ; 
in which sense they assert external, or, as we may say, historical facts 
only, and do not touch the man. 

Bentham's position, then, is not true — "The elements of pain and 

E 



258 Note 5 [Lect. 

pleasure give to the deontologist instruments sufficient for his work. 
' Give me matter and motion/ said Descartes, ' and I will make a 
physical world.' 'Give me,' may the utilitarian teacher exclaim, 
'give me the human sensibilities — joy and grief, pain and pleasure — 
and I will create a moral world. I will produce not only justice, but 
generosit\ r , patriotism, philanthropy, and the long and illustrious 
train of sublime and amiable virtues/'' (Introduction to Deontology, 
vol. ii.) " Deontology " does not supply the link between the good ot 
society and the individual. It may be said that the principle of 
benevolence exists in the human mind as a passion or affection, indepen- 
dently of the sense of " ought " or duty ; and that this is the link which 
connects the individual with society. But the mere affection of benevo- 
lence is only such a link so long as the affection is carried on by its own 
impulse, as the appetite of hunger or curiosity or any other is ; when 
benevolence becomes an effort, unless there is the sense of "ought" 
to supply the place of the force of the appetite, society's hold upon 
the individual goes. For though benevolence, while it was in force, 
was advantageous to the community, the want of it cannot be charged 
as a fault, there being no " ought " or " ought not " in the system. 
A " fault " in it can only mean a disadvantageous consequence of an 
action regarded as a productive thing, which is not a fault in the 
moral sense. Yet, unaccountable as it may seem, it is only when 
benevolence does become an effort, and therefore depends entirely 
upon the sense of " ought " for its exertion, that it is admitted to b»j 
a virtue by Bentham. " But though the test of virtue be usefulness, 
or, in other words, the production of happiness — virtue being that 
which is beneficial and vice that which is pernicious to the com- 
munity — there is no identity between virtue and usefulness, for there 
are many beneficial actions which do not partake of the nature of 
virtue. Virtue demands effort." (Deontology, vol. i. p. 146.) But 
why should a man make the effort ? Bentham cannot say he " ought" 
to make it, and no other reason, applying to the individual, can be 
alleged. His very definition of virtue then makes it dependent just 
on that principle which in his philosophy is omitted. He is possessed 
indeed of certain " sanctions or inducements to action," such as the 
fear of punishment and the desire for approbation. But the former 
of these two motives can only apply to a very small proportion of 
human actions, if by punishment we mean civil or physical punish- 
ment ; and the approbation of others is founded upon the sense of 
" ought " in those who give it, and its force as a motive depends upon 
the sense of " ought " in him who is the subject of it. Abstracted 
from this the approbation of others is merely their assertion of cer- 



III1 Note 6 



259 



tain facts which to the individual make no difference. To prudential 
actions the obligation is stronger than to benevolent, because interest 
in himself is more of a necessary feeling in a man than interest in 
others ; but even here the obligation is not moral ; nor if a man 
chooses not to regard or consult for his own interest can blame attach 
to him ; blame at least can only mean in this philosophy the asser- 
tion of certain consequences of his conduct. 

NOTE 6, p. 71. 

The philosophy of universal necessary law which puts man and 
material nature under the same head, and which argues that if man 
is not under that law, neither can nature be asserted to be, i.e., that if 
free-will is allowed in man, miracles may be allowed in nature, is 
thus stated : — 

" Step by step the notion of evolution by law is transforming the 

whole field of our knowledge and opinion Not the physical 

world alone is now the domain of inductive science, but the moral, the 
intellectual, and the spiritual are being added to its empire. ... It 
is the crown of philosophy to see the immutable even in the complex 
action of human life. In the latter, indeed, it is but the first germs 
which are clear. No rational thinker hopes to discover more than a 
few primary actions of law, and some approximating theory of growth. 
Much is dark and contradictory. . . . 

"Why this rigorous repudiation of all disorder in the material 
world, whilst insisting on stupendous perturbations of the moral? 
Why are all facts contrary to science rejected, and theories contrary 
to history retained? Why are physical miracles absurd, if spiritual 
miracles abound? Why are there no suspensions of the laws of 
matter, yet cardinal suspensions of the laws of mind ? . . . . They 
see 'the grand foundation — conception of universal law,' 'the invari- 
able operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences following 
in some necessary chain of orderly causation.' Such a law, we con- 
ceive, is read in all human history, life, and spirit." (Article on Neo- 
Christianity, Westminster Review, Oct. i860.) 

NOTE 7, p. 72. 

The secularist position is stated thus by its chief promulgator : — 
" You cannot live for both worlds, because you do not know both. 
You know but one. Live for the one you do know." (Secular Mis- 
cellany, p. 26.) 

■*' Secular principles relate to the present existence of man, and to 
methods of procedure the issues of which can be tested by the experi- 
ence of this life. A person holding secular principles as general rules 
of life, concerns himself with present time and materiality, neither 
ignoring 1101 denying the future and spiritual, which are independent 



26o Note i [Lect. 

questions. Secularity draws the line of distinction between the things 
of time and the things of eternity. That is secular which pertains to 
this world. The distinction may be seen in the fact that the cardinal 
propositions of theology are proveable only in the next life, and not in 
this. If I believe in a given creed, it may turn out to be the true 

one, but one must die to find out that Pure secular principles 

have for their object to fit men for time. Secularism purposes to 
regulate human affairs by considerations purely human. Its principles 
are founded upon nature, and its object is to render men as perfect as 
possible iu this life." (Principles of Secularism, p. 6.) 

" "We desire to know and not to hope. We have no wants, and wish 
to have none which truth will not satisfy. We would realize this life 
— we would also deserve another, but without the selfishness which 
craves it, or the presumption which expects it, or the discontent which 
demands it." (Secularism Distinguished from Unitarianism, p. 16.) 



LECTUEE IV. 

NOTE 1, p. 76. 

" At the utmost a physico-theology can only teach a supreme mind 
evinced in the laws of the world of matter, and the relations of a Deity 
to physical things essentially as derived from physical law .... 

" The firm conception of the immutability of order is the first rudi- 
ment in all scientific foundation for cosmo-theology. Our conclusion 
cannot go beyond the assumption in our evidence. Our argument 
can lead us only to such limited notions of the Divine attributes as 
are consistent with the principle of ' Cosmos.' If we speak of ' wis- 
dom/ it is as evinced in laws of profoundly-adjusted reason ; if of 
' power,' it is only in the conception of universal and eternal main- 
tenance of those arrangements ; if of ' infinite intelligence,' it is as 
manifested throughout the infinity of nature ; and to whose dominion 
we can imagine no limit, as we can imagine none to natural order. 

" If we attempt to extend the idea of ' power' to infinity, or what 
we call the attribute of ' Omnipotence,' in conformity with a strictly 
natural theology, it can only be from the boundless extent to which 
we find these natural arrangements kept up in incessant activity, but 
unchangeable order; the unlimited, and we believe illimitable expan- 
sion, both in time and space, of the same undeviating regularity with 
which the operations of the universally connected machinery are sus- 
tained. The difficulty which presents itself to many minds, how to 
reconcile the idea of unalterable law with volition (which seems to im- 
ply something changeable), can only be answered by appealing to 
those immutable laws as the sole evidence and exponent we have of 
supreme volition ; a volition of immutable mind, an empire of fixed 
intelligence. 

" The simple argument from the invariable order of nature is 



IV] 



Note 2 261 



wholly incompetent to give us any conception whatever of the Divine 
Omnipotence, except as maintaining, or acting through, that invariable 
universal system of physical order and laiv A Theism of Omni- 
potence in any sense deviating from the order of nature must be derived 
entirely from other teaching : in fact it is commonly traceable to early 
religious impressions derived, not from any real deductions of reason, 
but from the language of the Bible. 

" Natural theology does not lead us to the supernatural, being itself 
the essential and crowning principle of the natural : and pointing to 
the supreme moral cause or mind in nature, manifested to us as far as 
the invariable and universal series and connexion of physical causes 
are disclosed ; obscured only when they may be obscured ; hidden only 
when they may be imagined to be interrupted. 

" The supernatural is the offspring of ignorance, and the parent of 
superstition and idolatry ; the natural is the assurance of science, and 
the preliminary to all rational views of Theism." (Powell's Order of 
Nature, p. 245.) 

" It was formerly argued that every Theist must admit the credi- 
bility of miracles ; but this, it is now seen, depends on the nature and 
degree of his Theism, which may vary through many shades of opinion. 
It depends, in fact, on the precise view taken of the Divine attributes ; 
such, of course, as is attainable prior to our admission of revelation, or 
we fall into an argument in a vicious circle. The older writers on 
natural theology, indeed, have professed to deduce very exact conclu- 
sions as to the Divine perfections, especially Omnipotence ; conclusions 
which, according to the physical argument already referred to, appear 
carried beyond those limits to which reason or science are competent 
to lead us ; while, in fact, all our higher and more precise ideas of the 
Divine perfections are really derived from that very revelation, whose 
evidence is the point in question. The Divine Omnipotence is en- 
tirely an inference from the language of the Bible, adopted on the as- 
sumption of a belief in revelation. That ' with God nothing is impos- 
sible,' is the very declaration of Scripture ; yet on this the whole belief 
in miracles is built, and thus, with the many, that belief is wholly the 
result, not the antecedent of faith." (Powell's Study of Evidences of 
Christianity, p. 1 1 3.) 

NOTE 2, p. 79. 

Philosophers have applied the term " demonstrative" to certain 
proofs of the existence of a God ; and were these reasonings demon- 
strative in the strict mathematical sense it would not be correct to say 
tLat this great truth rested on a ground of faith. But the term " de- 
monstrative" does not appear to be used in this instance, by those 
who apply it, in a strict and mathematical sense. These kind of rea- 
sonings do indeed proceed upon axioms which instinctively approve 
themselves as rational ; and the axioms being admitted, a chain of 
irresistible consequences finally educes from them this cardinal truth: 



262 Note 2 [Lect. 

but the axioms, though upon the broad ground of reason and common 
sense obligatory, do not possess the rigid force of mathematical 
axioms ; and the structure of reasoning which is built upon them 
shares in the same defect. If we take the very first axiom, e.g. which 
lies at the foundation of the fabric, viz., that everything that begins 
to exist must have a cause, however near to the nature of a mathema- 
tical axiom this principle may be, we yet perceive a distinct difference 
between this principle and an axiom of mathematics, when we com- 
pare the two together. "We cannot say, e.g. that exactly the same self- 
evident certainty belongs to this truth that belongs to the axiom that 
things that are equal to the same are equal to one another. Nor, 
therefore, when upon the basis of the axiom that everything that be- 
gins to exist must have a cause, the argument proceeds, — Therefore 
there must always be existence antecedent to what begins ; therefore 
something must have from eternity existed ; an eternal succession of 
Beings being neither caused from without nor self-existent, is an in- 
consistency : therefore what has existed from eternity is one Being ; 
that one Being as existing from eternity is the cause of all being that 
begins ; as existing necessarily is omnipresent, for the necessity is the 
same everywhere ; and as the cause of intelligent beings, is Himself 
intelligent, — does this superstructure of reasoning possess the strict 
force of a mathematical proof. The demonstrative argument for the 
existence of a God is indeed the accurate working out of some strong 
instinctive maxims of reason, but when we endeavour to pursue these 
maxims and the reasoning upon them to the point of necessity, we are 
not able to do so ; the subject eludes our grasp, because in truth we 
have not faculties for perceiving demonstration or necessary connexion 
upon this subject-matter. Nor therefore do such reasonings, though 
called demonstrative, when we consider the astonishing nature of the 
great truth which is educed from them, appear to dispense with faith 
in the acceptance of and dependence upon them. 

Locke strongly asserts the demonstrative nature of the proof of the 
existence of a God. " It is as certain that there is a God, as that the 
opposite angles, made by the intersection of two straight lines, are 
equal." (Essay on the Human Understanding, bk. i. ch. iv. s. 16.) 
" But though this be the most obvious truth that reason discovers, 
and though its evidence be, if I mistake not, equal to a mathematical 
certainty ; yet it requires thought and attention, and the mind must 
apply itself to a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive 
knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of 
other propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear demon- 
stration We have a more certain knowledge of the existence 



IV] 



Note 2 263 



of a God than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered 
to us. Nay, I presume I may say that we may more certainly know- 
that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us. 
When I say we know, I mean that such knowledge is within our 
reach, which we cannot miss if we will but apply our minds to that, 
as we do to several other inquiries." The proof comes under these 
heads : — " Man knows that he himself is ; * " He knows also that 
nothing cannot produce a being, therefore something eternal ; * " Two 
sorts of beings, cogitative and incogitative ; " " Therefore there has 
been an eternal wisdom." (Book iv. ch. x.) 
Clarke says — 

" I proceed now to the main thing I at first proposed ; namely, to 
endeavour to shew, to such considering persons as I have already 
described, that the Being and Attributes of God are not only possible 
or barely probable in themselves, but also strictly demonstrable to any 
unprejudiced mind, from the most uncontestable principles of right 
reason 

" Now many arguments there are by which the Being and Attri- 
butes of God have been undertaken to be demonstrated ; and perhaps 
most of those arguments, if thoroughly understood, rightly stated, 
fully pursued, and. duly separated from the false or uncertain reason- 
ings which have sometimes been intermixed with them, would at 
length appear to be substantial and conclusive. But because I would 
endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid all manner of perplexity and 
confusion, therefore I shall not at this time use any variety of argu- 
ments, but endeavour by one clear and plain series of propositions 
necessarily connected and following one from another, to demonstrate 
the certainty of the Being of God, and to deduce in order the neces- 
sary Attributes of His nature, so far as by our finite reason we are 
enabled to discover and apprehend them. And because it is not to 
my present purpose to explain or illustrate things to them that 
believe, but only to convince unbelievers, and settle them that doubt, 
by strict and undeniable reasoning; therefore I shall not allege any- 
thing, which however really true and useful, may yet be liable to 
contradiction or dispute ; but shall endeavour to urge such proposi- 
tions only as cannot be denied without departing from that reason 
which ali atheists pretend to be the foundation of their unbelief." 
{Demonstration, <&c., Introduction.) 

Mr. Goldwin Smith, while arguing that what does rest upon pro- 
bable evidence is not essential to religion, maintains, though without 
any special reference to these reasonings, that the evidence upon 
which the existence of a God rests is not expressed by the phrase 
u probable evidence :" — 

" I confess that I, for one, enter with the less anxiety into any 
question concerning the validity of mere historical evidence, because 



264 Note 2 [Lect. 

I am convinced that no question concerning the validity of mere 
historical evidence can be absolutely vital to religion. Historical 
evidence is not a ground upon which religion can possibly rest ; for 
the human testimony of which such evidence consists is always falli- 
ble ; the chance of error can never be excluded : and the extra- 
ordinary delusions into which great bodies of men have fallen shew 
that even in the case of a multitude of witnesses that chance may be 
present in a considerable degree, particularly if the scene of the 
alleged fact is laid in an uncritical age or nation. Probable evidence, 
therefore, is the highest we can have of any historical fact. In 
ordinary cases we practically need no higher. The great results of 
history are here ; we have and eujoy them as certainly as we have 
and enjoy any object of sense ; and it signifies little by what exact 
agency in any particular case the work of human progress was carried 
on. But in the case of a religion probable evidence will not suffice. 
Eeligion is not a speculation which we may be content to hold sub- 
ject to a certain chance of error, nor is it a practical interest of the 
kind which Butler has in his mind when he tells us that we must 
act on this, as in other cases, on probability. It is a spiritual affec- 
tion which nothing less than the assured presence of its object can 
excite. We may be quite content to hold that the life of Csesar was 
such as it is commonly taken to have been, subject to certain chances 
of error arising from his own bias as an autobiographer, and from the 
partiality, prejudice, or imperfect information of his contemporaries ; 
but we should not be content to hold any vital fact of our religion 
under the same conditions. We may be ready to stake, and do 
constantly stake, our worldly interests, as Butler truly observes, 
upon probabilities, when certainty is beyond our power. But our 
hearts would refuse their office if we were to bid them adore and 
hold communion with a probable God." {Rational Religion, &c, 
p. 108.) 

When the evidence, however, of a Deity is described as " demon- 
strative " or " not probable," such a description does not appear to 
exclude, a ground of faith in the acceptance of such evidence ; the con- 
clusion being of so immense and astonishing a nature that taith is 
required for relying upon any reasoning or evidence, however strong, 
which leads to it; the mind naturally desiring the verification of 
such proof. 

It must be observed that it is not only a Moral Deity whose exist- 
ence is an object of faith; but a Deity at all, i.e. such as is dis- 
tinguishable from a mere universal force. Language is sometimes 
used as if the ground ot faith only applied to the moral attributes of 
the Deity, and the mere existence of a Supreme Intelligent Being 
were the conclusion of reason without faith. But the ground of 
faith comes in prior to the moral attributes of the Deity, because 
the existence of a God at all in any sense which comes up to the 



IV] 



Notes 3, 4 26; 



notion of the existence of a Personal Infinite Being is of itself — 
before going into any further question — such an amazing and super- 
natural truth that it cannot be embraced without faith. Although, 
if we first suppose an Infinite Intelligent Being, we cannot but go on 
to suppose that that Being possesses a character ; and, some character 
supposed, it cannot but be, notwithstanding the confusion of things 
here, more natural and easy for us to believe that that character is 
the Moral or Eighteous one, than that it is any other. 



NOTE 3, p. 84. 

"But were these views of the Divine attributes, on the other 
hand, ever so well established, it must be considered that the Theistic 
argument requires to be applied with much caution ; since most of 
those who have adopted such theories of the Divine perfections, on 
abstract grounds, have made them the basis of a precisely opposite 
belief; rejecting miracles altogether, on the plea that our ideas of the 
Divine perfections must directly discredit the notion of occasional 
interposition ; that it is derogatory to the idea of Infinite Power and 
Wisdom to suppose an order of things so imperfectly established that 
it must be occasionally interrupted and violated when the necessity 
of the case compelled, as the emergency of a revelation was imagined 
to do. But all such Theistic reasonings are but one-sided, and if 
pushed further must lead to a denial of all active operation of the 
Deity whatever ; as inconsistent with unchangeable, infinite perfec- 
tion. Such are the arguments of Theodore Parker, who denies 
miracles because ' everywhere I find law the constant mode of opera- 
tion of an infinite God;' or that of Wegscheider, that the belief in 
miracles is irreconcilable with the idea of an eternal God consistent 
with Himself" &c. (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, 
P- 1 1 3-) 

The writer admits that when the miraculous action of the Deity is 
denied upon Theistic reasonings, the denial affects the action of the 
Deity generally. But has not the same denial the same result when 
built upon physical reasonings ? 

NOTE 4, p. 85. 

" All religion, as such, ever has been and must be a thing entirely 
sui generis, and implies mystery and faith, however rightly allied to 
knowledge, and susceptible of a variety of external forms, according 
to the diversity of human character and the stages of human en- 
lightenment." (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 197.) 



266 Note i [Lect. 

NOTE 5, p. 85. 

(Vid. Note 2, Lect. III.) 
The attempt to disconnect religion with physics in cne remarkable 
instance is thus commented on by Dr. Heurtley : — 

" The miracles which are connected with onr Lord's Person and 
office are ' never/ we are told, ' insisted on in their physical details, 
but solely in their spiritual and doctrinal application.' The resurrec- 
tion, for instance, is ' emphatically dwelt upon, not in its physical 
letter, but in its doctrinal spirit.' 

" One is at a loss to conceive how any one could make such an 
assertion as this, unless he thought by his bold confidence to impose 
upon himself and overbear the reclamations of others. Most persons 
would rise from the perusal of the 15 th chapter of the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians with the thorough conviction that how much use 
soever the Apostle may make of our Lord's resurrection doctrinally, 
he does most emphatically dwell upon it in its physical letter. Its 
literal truth as a ' physiological phenomenon' is the very basis and 
substratum of all that is said on the subject." (Replies to Essays and 
Reviews, p. 172.) 



L E C T U E E Y. 

NOTE 1, p. 95. 

In the proof of miracles divines assume the existence of a Deity. 
Butler "takes for proved that there is an intelligent Author of 
Nature and natural Governor of the "World," before he enters upon 
the external and other evidences of revelation. (Analogy, Introduction.) 
Paley assumes in like manner, as the basis of his proof of the Chris- 
tian miracles, an intelligent and personal Supreme Being. " Suppose 
the world we live in to have had a Creator ; suppose it to appear 
from the predominant aim and tendency of the provisions and con- 
trivances observable in the universe, that the Deity when He formed 
it consulted for the happiness of His sensitive creation ; suppose the 
disposition which dictated this counsel to continue ; suppose a part 
of the creation to have received faculties from their Maker by which 

they are capable of rendering a moral obedience to HisAvill 

Suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imper- 
fection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the 
loss of some prior revelation, to want this knowledge, and not to be 
likely without the aid of a new revelation to attain it ; under these 
circumstances, is it improbable a revelation should be made? is it 



V] 



Note 2 267 



incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose ?" (Evidences 
of Christianity, Preparatory Considerations.) " The Christian argu- 
ment of miracles," says Archdeacon Lee, "takes for granted two 
elementary truths — the Omnipotence and the Personality of God." 
(On Miracles, p. 39.) 

NOTE 2, p. 100. 

" There is a very strong presumption against common speculative 
truths, and against the most ordinary facts, before the proof of them ; 
which yet is overcome by almost any proof. There is a presumption 
of millions to one against the story of Caesar, or of any other man. 
For suppose a number of common facts so and so circumstanced, of 
which one had no kind of proof, should happen to come into one's 
thoughts; every one would, without any possible doubt, conclude 
them to be false. And the like may be said of a single common fact. 
And from hence it appears, that the question of importance, as to the 
matter before us, is, concerning the degree of the peculiar presumption 
supposed against miracles ; not whether there be any peculiar pre- 
sumption at all against them. For, if there be the presumption of 
millions to one against the most common facts, what can a small pre- 
sumption additional to this amount to, though it be peculiar? It 
cannot be estimated, and is as nothing." (Analogy, part ii. ch. 2.) 

Butler would appear in this passage to confound two different kinds 
of improbability, which Mr. Mill calls improbability before the fact, 
and improbability after. 1 According to this statement the main and 
principal presumption against a miracle is that presumption which 
lies against all, even the most ordinary facts, when they are imagined 

1 The mistake consists in overlooking the distinction between (what may 
Tie called) improbability before the fact, and improbability after it ; two 
different properties, the latter of which is always a ground of disbelief ; 
the former is so or not, as it may happen In the cast of a per- 
fectly fair die the chances are five to one against throwing ace ; that is, 
ace will be thrown on an average only once in six throws. But this is no 
reason against believing that ace was thrown on a given occasion, if any 
credible witness asserts it ; since, although ace is only thrown once in six 
times, some number which is only thrown once in six times must have 
been thrown, if the die was thrown at all. _ The improbability, then, or 
in other words, the unusualness of any fact, is no reason for disbelieving 
it, if the nature of the case renders it certain that either that or something 

equally improbable, that is, equally unusual, did happen "We are 

told that A. B. died yesterday ; the moment before w-e were so told, the 
chances against his having died on that day may have been ten thousand 
to one ; but since he was certain to die at some time or other, and when 
he died must necessarily die on some particular day, while the chances are 
innumerable against every day in particular, experience affords no ground 
for discrediting any testimony which may be produced to the event having 
taken place on a given day." (Logic, vol. ii. p. 166.) 



268 , Note 2 [Lect. 

antecedently. The presumption against any occurrence taking place 
which it comes into one's head to imagine, taking place, is immense ; 
and there is this presumption beforehand, Butler says, against any 
miracle taking place ; but according to his statement, this presump- 
tion which a miracle has against it in common with all facts whatever, 
is the great and main presumption against a miracle ; and any addi- 
tional to this, which may be peculiar to it, or attach to it because it 
is a miracle, amounts to nothing. " What can a small presumption 
additional to this amount to, though it be peculiar V But this state- 
ment is not an adequate representation of the presumption against a 
miracle, and does not carry our common sense along with it, because 
it does not distinguish between the different natures of an improba- 
bility beforehand — upon a ground of mere random anticipation — of 
any event, and improbability upon the ground of the kind of event. 
He regards the latter as a mere infinitesimal addition in quantity to 
the immense body of already existing former presumption ; whereas 
the latter is a presumption different in nature and kind from the 
former. The presumption which there was beforehand against any 
particular event is one which in its own nature immediately gives 
way to the least evidence of such an event occurring, because its sole 
ground was the want of evidence, which is ipso facto removed by 
evidence. A random guess is in other words the entire absence of 
evidence ; but the mere absence of proof offers no resistance to proof. 
"Whereas the improbability upon the ground of the kind of event goes 
on along with the proof of that event, and resists that proof ; resists 
it, even though it ultimately yield to it. " The chances against an 
ordinary event," says Bishop Fitzgerald, " are not specific but particu- 
lar: they are chances against this event, not against this kind of 
event." (Article on Miracles: Dictionary of the Bible.) On the other 
hand, the presumption against a miracle is presumption against the 
kind of event. Whereas then Butler represents the "particular" 
presumption against a miracle, which is the same that there is against 
any common fact beforehand, as the principal improbability of a 
miracle, and the " specific " presumption as so minute an addition to 
this as to be incapable of being estimated, the order and value of the 
presumptions ought to be reversed ; the former being in truth nothing 
of a presumption, that is to say, a presumption which does not tell 
in the least as soon as ever evidence is offered ; the latter being a 
presumption which acts when evidence is offered. In this particular 
case Butler's criterion is not a natural one ; for the objection to the 
kind of event a miracle is, is plainly our natural objection to a 
miracle. 



V] Note 2 269 

" Butler," says Bishop Fitzgerald, " seems to have been very sen- 
sible of the imperfect state, in his own time, of the logic of probability ; 
and though he appears to have formed a more accurate conception of 
it than the Scotch school of philosophers who succeeded and under- 
took to refute Hume ; yet there is one passage in which we may 
perhaps detect a misconception of the subject in the pages even of 
this great writer. 

" It is plain that in this passage Butler lays no stress upon the 
peculiarities of the story of Csesar, which he casually mentions. For 
he expressly adds, ' or of any other man;' and repeatedly explains 
that what he says applies equally to any ordinary facts, or to a single 
fact 

" The way in which he proposes to estimate the presumption 
against ordinary facts is, by considering the likelihood of their being 
anticipated beforehand by a person guessing at random. But surely 
this is not a measure of the likelihood of the facts considered in 
themselves, but of the likelihood of the coincidence of the facts with a 
rash and arbitrary anticipation. The case of a person guessing before- 
hand, and the case of a witness reporting what has occurred, are 
essentially different. In the common instance, for example, of an 
ordinary die, before the cast, there is nothing to determine my mind, 
with any probability of a correct judgment, to the selection of any 
one of the six faces rather than another ; and therefore we rightly 
say that there are five chances to one against any one side, considered 
as thus arbitrarily selected. But when a person who has had oppor- 
tunities of observing the cast, reports to me the presentation of a 
particular face, there is evidently no such presumption against the 
coincidence of his statement and the actual fact ; because he has, by 
the supposition, had ample means of ascertaining the real state of 
the occurrence. And it seems plain that, in the case of a credible 
witness, we should as readily believe his report of the cast of a die 
with a million of sides as of one with only six ; though in respect of 
a random guess beforehand, the chances against the correctness of the 
guess would be vastly greater in the former case, than in that of an 
ordinary cube 

" The truth is, that the chances to which Butler seems to refer as a 
presumption against ordinary events, are not in ordinary cases over- 
come by testimony at all. The testimony has nothing to do witli 
them ; because they are chances against the event considered as the 
subject of a random vaticination, not as the subject of a report made 
by an actual observer. It is possible, however, that throughout this 
obscure passage, Butler is arguing upon the principles of some ob- 
jector unknown to us ; and, indeed, it is certain that some writers 
upon the doctrine of chances (who were far from friendly to revealed 
religion) have utterly confounded together the questions of the chances 
against the coincidence of an ordinary event with a random guess, and 
of the probability of such an event considered by itself." {Dictionary 
of the Bible: Article on Miracles.) 



270 Note 2 [Lect. 

Arclicleacoii Lee disagrees with Bishop Fitzgerald. " So far is 
Bishop Butler from ignoring the distinction between ' probability be- 
fore and after the fact/ or, as he expresses himself with greater pre- 
cision, ' before and after proof,' that his whole argument proceeds 
upon its recognition." (On Miracles, p. 75.) Bishop Butler's argument 
recognizes two states of the case, before and after proof of the fact ; 
nor could it avoid doing so : but this is not the same as recognizing 
the two kinds of probability " before " and " after." He recognizes 
improbability before proof, and certainly after proof ; but not that 
improbability which conflicts with proof, that which is meant by " im- 
probability after the fact." The writer adds : — 

" The two instances selected by Mr. Mill are indeed, as he states, 
' things in strict conformity to the usual course of experience, ' the 
chances merely being against them ; ; but they are not in the least 
analogous to the instances on which Bishop Butler founds his pro- 
position. The great difference is, that we do know all the chances in 
the one case, and that we do not know all the chances in the other. There 
are but six sides to the die ; the chances, therefore, are but five to 
one against ace at any throw. The years of human life cannot 
exceed a definite number, to which we can approximate within 
moderate limits ; but the probability of the events on which the 
' Analogy ' depends cannot be thus estimated. The history of Caesar, 
or of any other man, or common facts, are matters incapable of being 
submitted to calculus of probabilities. The events of human life 
present a variety to which no bounds can be set. What human cal- 
culation can make full allowance for the influence of human motives ; 
or foresee all the possible outbursts of human passion ; or reduce the 
contingencies of political change to the dominion of unvarying law V 
(On Miracles, p. 75.) 

But does it make any difference in the nature of the improbability 
before proof, now spoken of, whether or not we can calculate the 
chances in question 1 We know that the chances are five to one 
against the throw of ace in the cast of the die, and that they are 
millions to one, or incalculable, against the story of any common 
man, imagined beforehand ; but the difference in the number of the 
opposing chances, which constitutes improbability beiorehand, makes 
not the slightest difference in the weight of that improbability, when 
evidence is given of the fact ; which weight is then nothing, equally 
whether the antecedent chances are units or thousands. One die has 
six sides, another, let us suppose with Bishop Fitzgerald, has a 
million ; beforehand, therefore, the chances in these two cases were 
respectively five to one and a million to one against any particular 



V J Note 3 271 

throw ; but this difference in the number of chances beforehand 
would not make a particular throw when made at all more difficult to 
believe or make it require at all more evidence in the case of one die 
than in the case of the other ; because the weight of the improba- 
bility before the fact would, upon evidence of the fact, vanish and 
disappear at once alike, whether that improbability was five to one or 
a million to one. A die, whether it has the one or the other number 
of sides, is equally obliged to fall on some side ; which fall, therefore, 
is in either case equally devoid of strangeness, and therefore an equal 
subject of evidence. In like manner any common man's history has 
antecedently an incalculably greater number of chances against it 
than some one given ordinary event has, but one does not require 
greater evidence than the other. 



NOTE 3, p. 102. 

" This of course turns on the general grounds of our antecedent 
convictions. The question agitated is not that of mere testimony, of 
its value, or of its failures. It refers to those antecedent considerations 
which must govern our entire view of the subject, and which being 
dependent on higher laws of relief, must be paramount to all attesta- 
tion, or rather belong to a province distinct from it. What is alleged 
is a case of the supernatural ; but no testimony can reach to the 
supernatural ; testimony can apply only to apparent sensible facts ; 
testimony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable 
occurrence or phenomenon : that it is due to supernatural causes is 
entirely dependent on the previous belief and assumption of the 

parties If a number of respectable witnesses were to 

concur in asseverating that on a certain occasion they had seen two 
and two make five, should we be bound to believe them ? 

" This, perhaps it will be said, is an extreme case. Let us sup- 
pose another. If the most numerous ship's company were all to 
asseverate that they had seen a mermaid, would any rational persons 
at the present day believe them ? That they saw something which 
they believed to be a mermaid would be easily conceded. No amount 
of attestation of innumerable and honest witnesses would ever con- 
vince any one versed in mathematical and mechanical science, that a 
person had squared the circle or discovered perpetual motion. Ante- 
cedent credibility depends on antecedent knowledge, and enlarged 
views of the connection and dependence of truths ; and the value of 
any testimony will be modified or destroyed in different degrees to 
minds differently enlightened. 

" Testimony, after all, is but a second-hand assurance ; it is but a 
blind guide. Testimony can avail nothing against reason." (Powell's 
Study of Evidences, pp. 107, 141.) 



72 Notes 4, 5 [Xect, 



NOTE 4, p. 104. 

" The essential question of miracles stands quite apart from any 
consideration of testimony ; the question would remain the same if 
we had the evidence of our own senses to an alleged miracle, that is 
to an extraordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not the mere fact, but 
the cause or explanation of it, which is the point at issue." (Powell's 
Study of Evidences, p. 141.) 

" But material as, in reference to the study of the last remark, is 
the discussion of testimony, it must still be observed that in the 
general and abstract point of view this is really but adventitious to. the 
question of miracles ; and that, supposing all doubt as to testimony 
were entirely removed, as in the case of an actual witness having the 
evidence of his own senses to an extraordinary and perhaps inexplicable 
fact, still the material enquiry would remain, Is it a miracle ? It is 
here, in fact, that the essence of the question of credibility is centred 
— not in regard to the mere external apparent event, but to the cause 
of it." (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 286.) 

" We have observed that a miracle is a matter of opinion ; and ; 
according to the ordinary view, the precise point of opinion involved 
in the assertion of a miracle is that the event in question is a 
violation or suspension of the laws of nature ; a point on which 
opinions will chiefly vary according to the degree of acquaintance 
with physical philosophy and the acceptance of its wider principles ; 
especially as these principles are now understood, and seem to im- 
ply the grand conception of the universal Cosmos, and the sublime 
conclusions resulting from it or embodied in it." (Ibid. p. 291.) 

" Of old the sceptic professed he would be convinced by seeing a 
miracle. At the present day, a visible miracle would but be the 
very subject of his scepticism. It is not the attestation, but the 
nature of the alleged marvel, which is now the point in question." 
(Ibid. p. 296.) 

NOTE 5, p. 106. 

" The philosopher denies the credibility of alleged events profess- 
edly in their nature at variance with all physical analogy." (Study 
of Evidences, -p. 135.) 

" The literal sense of physical events impossible to science cannot 
be essential to spiritual truth." (Order of Nature, p. 376.) 

" Questions of this kind are often perplexed by want of due atten- 
tion to the laws of thought and belief, and of due distinction in 
ideas and terms. The proposition ' that an event may be so incredible 
as intrinsically to set aside any degree of testimony,' in no way 
applies to or affects the honesty or veracity of that testimony, or 
the reality of the impressions on the minds of the witnesses, so far as 
relates to the matter of sensible fact only. It merely means : that 
from the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability of 



V] 



Note 6 273 



some kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we know not 
where, is greater than the probability of the event really happening in 
tne way and from the causes assigned." (Study of Evidences, p. 107.) 

The transference indeed everywhere insisted upon by this writer, 
of miracles from the region of history to that of faith (see following- 
note), indicates of itself that the thing pronounced to be incredible, 
and to be incapable of being accepted as real, is not the cause of the 
miraculous facts, but the miraculous facts themselves as recorded. 
For were the miracles credible as facts, and the supernatural causes 
alone denied, why should not they be matters of history, to be 
accepted upon historical evidence — the facts accepted, however the 
causes were disputed? But miracles are denied the character of 
historical events, and relegated to the domain of faith ; which shews 
that, in the mind of the writer, the facts themselves rank as in- 
credible, and not the cause only. 



NOTE 6, p. 108. 

" The main point on which I would remark as evinced in these and 
numerous other passages to the same effect, is, that the acceptance of 
miracles as such seems to be here distinctly recognized as the sole 
work of a religious principle of faith, and not an assent of the under- 
standing to external evidence, the appeal to which seems altogether 
disowned and set aside. Conviction appears to be avowedly removed 
from the basis of testimony and sensible facts, and placed on that of 
spiritual impression and high religious feeling." (Powell's Order of 
Nature, p. 367.) 

" The belief in miracles, whether in ancient or modern times, has 
always been a point not of evidence addressed to the intellect, but of 
religious faith impressed on the spirit. The mere fact was nothing : 
however well attested, it might be set aside ; however fabulous, it 
might be accepted, — according to the predisposing religious per- 
suasion of the parties. If a more philosophical survey tend to ignore 
suspensions of nature, as inconceivable to reason, the spirit of faith 
gives a different interpretation, and transfers miracles to the more 
congenial region of spiritual contemplation and Divine mystery." 
(Ibid. p. 439-) 

" To conclude, an alleged miracle can only be regarded in one of 
two ways ; either abstractedly as a physical event, and therefore to 
be investigated by reason and physical evidence, and referred to 
physical causes, possibly to known causes, but at all events to some 

higher cause or law, if at present unknown ; or, as 

connected with religious doctrine, regarded in a sacred light, 
asserted on the authority of inspiration. In this case it ceases to be 
capable of investigation by reason, or to own its dominion ; it is ac- 

S 



74 Notes 7-9 [L 



ECT. 



cepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and 
influence of faith. 

" Thus miraculous narratives become invested -with the character 
of articles of faith." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, 
p. 142.) 

NOTE, 7, p. 109. 

" The case indeed of the antecedent argument of miracles is very 
clear, however little some are inclined to perceive it. In nature and 
from nature, by science and by reason, we neither have nor can pos- 
sibly have any evidence of a Deity working miracles; for that we must 
go out of nature and beyond reason. If we could have any such 
evidence from nature, it could only prove extraordinary natural effects, 
which would not be miracles in the old theological sense, as isolated, 
unrelated, and uncaused ; whereas no physical fact can be conceived 
as unique, or without analogy and relation to others, and to the whole 
system of natural causes." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christie 
anity, p. 141.) 

NOTE 8, p. 109. 

"If miracles were in the estimation of a former age among the 
chief supports of Christianity, they are at present among the main 
difficulties and hindrances to its acce23tance.' ; (Powell's Study of the 
Evidences of Christianity, p. 140.) 

" In the popular acceptation, it is clear the Gospel miracles are 
always objects, not evidences of faith ; and when they are connected 
specially with doctrines, as in several of the higher mysteries of the 
Christian faith, the sanctity which invests the point of faith itself is 
extended to the external narrative in which it is embodied ; the 
reverence due to the mystery renders the external events sacred from 
examination, and shields them also within the pale of the sanctuary ; 
the miracles are merged in the doctrines with which they are connected, 
and associated with the declarations of spiritual things which are, as 
such, exempt from those criticisms to which physical statements 
would be necessarily amenable." (Ibid. p. 143.) 

NOTE 9, p. in. 

" It is not indeed improbable, nay, rather it is exceedingly probable, 
that the force of this practical realization and appropriation, should 
have been taken into exact account by Him who launched His revela- 
tion into the world with so much, and so much only, force as was 
necessary to secure its reception at the hands of those who by their 
willingness proved their worthiness to receive it." (Scepticism and 
Revelation, by H. Harris, B.D., Rector of Winterbourne-Basset, p. 12.) 

Mr. Harris gives as an instance of this principle the evidence of the 
Resurrection : — 

" In what terms is the attestation on behalf of this miracle described 



VI] 



Note i 275 



by St. Peter : — ' Him God raised up the third day, and shewed Him 
openly ; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, 
even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the 
dead/ What but the self-confidence of truth itself would have dared to 
express itself in such terms as these ? "With what quiet assurance does 
revelation here assert the dignity of her position, as though she almost 
disdained to make full use of the authority placed at her disposal." 



LECTUEE VI. 

NOTE 1, p. 117. 

" Consider why it is that, with exactly the same amount of evidence, 
both negative and positive, we did not reject the assertion that there 
are black swans, while we should refuse credence to any testimony 
which asserted that there were men wearing their heads underneath 
their shoulders. The first assertion was more credible than the latter. 
But why more credible ? So long as neither phenomenon had been 
actually witnessed, what reason was there for finding the one harder 
to be believed than the other ? Apparently, because there is less 
constancy in the colours of animals than in the general structure of 
their internal anatomy. But how do we know this ? Doubtless, from 
experience. It appears, then, that we need experience to inform us, 
in what degree, and in what cases, or sorts of cases, experience is to 
be relied on. Experience must be consulted in order to learn from 
it under what circumstances arguments from it will be valid. We 
have no ulterior test to which we subject experience in general ; but 
we make experience its own test. Experience testifies that among the 
uniformities which it exhibits, or seems to exhibit, some are more to 
be relied on than others ; and uniformity, therefore, may be presumed, 
from any given number of instances, with a greater degree of assur- 
ance, in proportion as the case belongs to a class in which the 
uniformities have hitherto been found more uniform. n (Mill's System 
of Logic, vol. i. p. 330.) 

" In some cases of apparently marvellous occurrences, after due 
allowance for possible misapprehension or exaggeration in the state- 
ments, it might be conceded that the event, though of a very singular 
kind, was yet not such as to involve anything absolutely at variance 
even with the known laws of nature : — very remarkable coincidences 
of events ; very unusual appearances ; — very extraordinary affections 
of the human body ; — such especially as those astonishing but well- 
ascertained cases of catalepsy, trance, or suspended animation ; — very 
marvellous and sudden cures of diseases ; — the phenomena of double 
consciousness, visions, somnambulism, and spectral impressions ; — 
might perhaps be included in this class, and, subject to such natural 
interpretation, be entirely admissible. Other instances might, however, 



276 Notes 2,3 [Lect. 

he recounted more absolutely at variance with natural order, suck, e.g. 
as implied a subversion of gravitation, or of the constitution of matter ; 
descriptions inconceivable to those impressed with the truth of the 
great first principle of all induction — the invariable constancy of the 
order of nature. 

" In such cases we might imagine a misapprehension or exaggera- 
tion of some real event, or possibly some kind of ocular illusion, 
mental hallucination, or the like." (Powell's Order of Nature, p. 270.) 

NOTE 2, p. 119. 

" The simoon, or whatever it was, which swept off in one night the 
army of Sennacherib, and which was adopted as the instrument for 
effecting the predicted deliverance of Jerusalem, may have taken place 
in its appointed order of nature. Nay, there is nothing repugnant to 
the soundest faith or the deepest reverence in the supposition that the 
physical instruments employed for accomplishing the deluge, which 
are represented under the image of the 'fountains of the great deep 
being broken up, and the windows of heaven opened/ took place in 
their appointed order in the cycle of nature's operations ; and that 
their foreseen synchronism with the time appointed for 'the end of all 
flesh' was made subservient to the Divine counsels. The miracle is 
none the less for being transferred from the fact itself to its prediction 
and adaptation." (Essays and Reviews considered, by Rev. H. A. Wood- 
gate, p. 93.) 

NOTE 3, p. 119. 
Mr. LIansel makes some able and acute remarks upon the charac- 
teristic of personal agency, in the case of miracles, with reference to 
the question of their referribleness to natural causes : — 

" The fact of a work being done by human agency places it, as 
regards the future progress of science, in a totally different class from 
mere physical phenomena. The appearance of a comet, or the fall of 
an aerolite, may be reduced by the advance of science from a supposed 
supernatural to a natural occurrence ; and this reduction furnishes a 
reasonable presumption that other phenomena of a like character vol I 
in time meet with a like explanation. But the reverse is the 
case with respect to those phenomena which are narrated as having 
been produced by personal agency. In proportion as the science of 
to-clay surpasses that of former generations, so is the improbability 
that any man could have done in past times, by natural means, works 
which no skill of the present age is able to imitate. The two classes 
of phenomena rest in fact on exactly opposite foundations. In order 
that natural occurrences, taking place without human agency, may 
wear the appearance of prodigies, it is necessary that the cause and 
manner of their production should be unknown; and every advance 
of science from the unknown to the known tends to lessen the number 
of such prodigies by referring them to natural causes, and increase* 



VI] Notes 4, 5 277 

the probability of a similar explanation of the remainder. But on 
the other hand, in order that a man may perform marvellous acts by 
natural means, it is necessary that the cause and manner of their pro- 
duction should be known by the performer ; and in this case every 
fresh advance of science from the unknown to the known diminishes 
the probability that what is unknown now could have been known in 
a former age. 

" The effect, therefore, of scientific progress, as regards the Scrip- 
tural miracles, is gradually to eliminate the hypothesis which refers 
them to unknown natural causes." (Aids to Faith, p. 14.) 

NOTE 4, p. 121. 

11 Particular theories as to the manner in which miracles have 
been wrought are matters rather curious than practically useful. In 
all such cases we must bear in mind the great maxim — Subtilitas 

naturce longe superat subtilitatem mentis humance Some find it 

easier to conceive of miracles as not really taking place in the exter- 
nal order of nature, but in the impressions made by it upon our 

minds It is plain that these various hypotheses are merely 

ways in which different minds find it more or less easy to conceive 
the mode in which miracles may have been wrought." (Bishop 
Fitzgerald's Article on Miracles: Dictionary of the Bible, p. 382.) 

NOTE 5, p. 125. 

Archbishop Trench adopts the ordinary distinction between the 
direct action of the Deity and His action by means of general laws ; 
His action in the order of nature and His action in special interposi- 
tions. " An extraordinary Divine causality, and not that ordinary 
Avhich we acknowledge everywhere and in everything, belongs to the 
essence of the miracle ; powers of God other than those which have 
been always working." The writer, however, does not suppose that 
the difference lies in the Divine action itself so much as in the revela- 
tion of it. " The unresting activity of God, which at other times 
hides and conceals itself behind the veil of what we term natural 
laws, does in the miracle unveil itself ; it steps out from its conceal- 
ment, and the hand which works it is laid bare." (Preliminary Essay, 
chap, ii.) The writer of the article on " The Immutability of Nature,'' 
in the Quarterly Review, No. 220, speaking only of the philosophical 
question, denies the philosophical ground of the common distinction 
just referred to. " It is only an arbitrary unproved hypothesis, that 
in the ordinary operations of nature the Divine will acts only in- 
directly and not directly, precisely as in the case of miracles. How 
can you draw a distinction between the ordinary operations of the 
Divine will in the daily course of things and its extraordinary in the 



278 Note 5 [Lect. 

miracles of Christianity ? .... If a sovereign, directing the move- 
ments of a mighty host by secret telegrams every minute, or concealed 
under a disguise, should on occasions for some wise consistent object 
appear at the head of his troops and give the word of command him- 
self, would this startle the soldier? Would he call it an anomaly?" 
(P- 376.) 

The author of " Dialogues on Divine Providence " rejects the dis- 
tinction : — 

" What do we know of the laws of nature more than you began by 
saying ? They express a certain uniformity in nature ; they assure 
us that the same cause will be followed by the same effect. But 
why this uniformity exists, why there is this connection between 
cause and effect, neither they can tell us nor can any one tell us of 
them 

"Ph. I am disposed to think you are right. If so, what follows ? 

" H. Only this : it is a mere figure of speech to say that God acts 
through laws. The expression conveys to the mind an idea of a 
medium interposed between the Worker and His work. But the 
nature of general laws, if we have taken a just view of them, justifies 
no such idea. If we explain the expression, it comes simply to this — 
there is an uniformity in God's works. On the same occasions He 
acts in the same way." (Dialogues on Divine Providence, p. 17.) 

" Providence and Law are both words by which we express, or 
endeavour to express, certain truths about the manner in which God 
works. Providence implies that in all the dealings of God with His 
creatures, He acts consciously, voluntarily, and knowingly, as an 
omniscient and omnipotent agent. Law implies, that in His works 
and dealings we can trace a certain amount of uniformity and resem- 
blance, which the structure of our minds leads us to believe to exist 
in a still greater degree than we can trace it. In God, as a Being of 
perfect knowledge and perfect power, there is no opposition between 
the greatest uniformity of action and the most particular regard for the 
issue of each action, in all its multiform consequences. He sees all 
things from the first, effects all that He wills in His own w T ay, never 
makes a mistake, never miscalculates a consequence, never overlooks 
an element or a condition, is never deceived or overpowered by inde- 
pendent or subordinate agents, never need suspend His steps to watch 
an event, or retrace His course to rectify an error. But the wisest of 
men must often do this : and so, misled by a false analogy, we are 
apt to attribute to God the imperfection of our own works. We form 
our calculations ; and they prove erroneous because the immutable 
laws around us interfere with our plans in some unforeseen way. And 
this makes us sometimes speak and think as if the events which 
depend on the laws which God has made were in some way inde- 
pendent of Him, and out of the reach of His power. The most pro- 
found and thoughtful among us can never lay down universal rules 
of conduct with such absolute accuracy that considerations of justice, 



VI] 



Note 6 279 



equity, or expediency will not sometimes lead him to make excep- 
tions to his rule ; and we transfer too readily this consequence of 

human imperfection to the Supreme and Perfect Lawgiver 

But do the limits thus placed to our faculties afford us the least justi- 
fication for assigning any similar bounds to His 1 Dare we assert that 
His intuition of universal lawsdoesnot comprehend every actual andpossible 
particular instance ? Is it not to attribute human fallibility to Him, 
to think that the uniformity of action which He is pleased to observe 
cannot coexist with the most perfect and delicate regard to the ten- 
dencies and consequences of all His actions ? We make a great assump- 
tion if we regard general laws as instruments and mediums of Divine 
operations.'' (Dialogues on Divine Providence, p. 70.) 

" Suppose then (I need not say that it is no merely imaginary case) 
a person choked by a fish-bone, and so killed. Life and death, weaK 
allow, are in the hands of God. A believer would not doubt that one 
who dies by an accident of this kind, dies at the time and in the 
manner which God, in His Providence, thinks best. The fish-bone 
is the instrument of His Will. It has fixed itself in the sufferer's 
throat by no miraculous agency, but in the ordinary course of cause 
and effect. But only consider for a moment the complication of 
causes which placed it there. The toil of the crew of a fishing-boat 
some two nights before, the conditions of wind and wave which caused 
a fish with a bone of this particular shape to be caught, the demand 
and consequent supply which brought it to a town some hundred 
miles from the sea, the little circumstances which led to the purchase 
in the town of this individual fish, and a hundred other points of 
detail ; such as the light by which the dinner was eaten, the exact 
degree of hardness or softness of the fish, as dependent on the precise 
manner of cooking, even the power of contractility in the eater's 
throat, which may again have depended on his general health, or on 
the bracing or relaxing state of the atmosphere. Vary but one of 
these conditions, and the same result would probably not have hap- 
pened. And perhaps a medical man could not be found till too late ; 
and his absence was caused by the illness of another patient, itself 
dependent on causes equally remote and obscure. Could you blame 
any one who, having first accepted the truth, that death in this case 
happened according to the Providence of God, saw His finger also 
in every circumstance which had led to it, and attributed them all to 
His Will." (Dialogues on Divine Providence, p. 1 1 1.) 

NOTE 6, p. 127. 

"Let the reader imagine himself sitting before the calculating 
engine, and let him again observe and ascertain, by lengthened 
induction, the nature of the law it is computing. Let him imagine 
that he has seen the changes wrought on its face by the lapse of 
thousands of years, and that, without one solitary exception, he has 
found the engine register the series of square numbers. Suppose, 
now, the maker of that machine to say to the observer, ' I will, by 



280 Note 7 [Lect. 

moving a certain mechanism, which is invisible to you, cause the 
engine to make a cube number instead of a square one, and then to 
revert to its former course of square numbers ; ' the observer would be 
inclined to attribute to him a degree of power but little superior to 
that which was necessary to form the original engine. 

" But, let the same observer, after the same lapse of time, the same 
amount of uninterrupted experience of the uniformity of the law of 
square numbers, hear the maker of that engine say to him, ' The next 
number which shall appear on those wheels, and which you expect 
to find a square number, shall not be such. When the machine was 
originally ordered to make these calculations, I impressed on it a law, 
which should coincide with that of square numbers in every case 
except the one which is now about to appear, after which no future 
exception can ever occur ; but the unvarying law of squares shall be 
pursued until the machine itself perishes from decay. 

"Undoubtedly the observer would ascribe a greater degree of 
power to the artist who thus willed that event at the distance of ages 
before its arrival. 

" If the contriver of the engine then explain to him, that, by the 
very structure of it, he has power to order any number of such 
apparent deviations from its laws to occur at any future periods, 
however remote, and that each of these may be of a different kind ; 
and if he also inform him, that he gave it that structure in order to 
meet events which he foresaw must happen at those respective periods, 
there can be no doubt that the observer would ascribe to the inventor 
far higher knowledge than if, when those events severally occurred, 
he were to intervene, and temporarily alter the calculations of the 
machine. 

" If, besides this, Le were so far to explain the structure of the 
engine, that the observer could himself, by some simple process, such 
as the mere moving of a bolt, call into action those apparent devia- 
tions whenever certain combinations were presented to his eye ; if he 
were thus to impart a power of predicting such excepted cases, de- 
pendent on the will, although otherwise beyond the limits of the 
observer's power and knowledge, such a structure would be admitted 
as evidence of a still more skilful contrivance." (Ninth Bridgwater 
Treatise, ch. viii.) 

NOTE 7, p. 131. 

Neander contemplates a miracle in this light, as assuming this 
highest and supreme region of free-will :— 

" Many will admit certain facts to be inexplicable by any known 
laws, and at the same time refuse to grant them a miraculous or 
supernatural character. Some are led by an unprejudiced admission 
of the facts to acknowledge, without any regard whatever to religion, 
that they transcend the limits of existing science, and content them- 
selves with that acknowledgment, leaving to the progress of natural 



VII] 



Note i 281 



philosophy or psychology to discover the laws, as yet unknown, that 

will explain the mysterious phenomena It is not upon this 

road that we can lead men to recognize the supernatural and the 
divine; to admit the powers of heaven as manifesting themselves 
upon earth. Miracles belong to a region of holiness and freedom, to 
which neither experience, nor observation, nor scientific discovery 
can lead. There is no bridge betweeen this domain and that of 
natural phenomena. Only by means of our inward affinity for this 
spiritual kingdom, only by hearing and obeying, in the stillness of the 
soul, the voice of God within us, can we reach those lofty regions." 
(Life of Christ, bk. iv. ch. 5.) 



Archbishop Trench dwells on the same point of view : — 

" If in one sense the orderly workings of nature reveal the glory of 
God, in another they hide that glory from our eyes ; if they ought to 
make us continually remember Him, yet there is danger that they 
will lead us to forget Him, until this world around us shall prove 
not a translucent medium, through which we behold Him, but a 
thick impenetrable veil, concealing Him wholly from our sight. 
Were there no other purpose in the miracles than this, namely, to 
testify the liberty of God, and to affirm the will of God, which, how- 
ever it habitually shews itself in nature, is yet more than and above 
nature ; were it only to break a link in that chain of cause and effect, 
which else we should come to regard as itself God, as the iron chain 
of an inexorable necessity, binding heaven no less than earth, they 
would serve a great purpose, they would not have been wrought in 
vain." (Notes on the Miracles: Preliminary Essay, ch. ii.) 



LECTURE VII. 

NOTE 1, p. 142. 

The proof of Mahomet's measure of mankind lies in the whole 
moral code of Mahometanism ; less however in that code taken by 
itself, than in it as compared with the Gospel system of morals from 
which it was so conspicuous and ignominious a descent. Mahomet 
was perfectly acquainted with the Gospel and with the moral standard 
of the Gospel : he wrote the Koran with the Bible, both the Old and 
New Testament, before him ; he knew that the spirit and practice of 
the later dispensation was an advance upon that of the earlier, and 
that the standard of morals had been a matter of growth and pro- 
gress ; yet in promulgating a new religion, with the higher standard 
before his eyes, he adopted the lower one, and retrograded not only 
from Christianity but from Judaism. Not only was he fully 



282 Note 1 [Lect. 

acquainted with the Gospel revelation, but even professed his own 
to carry out and to succeed it in the Divine counsels : yet in engraft- 
ing his own religion upon the Law and the Gospel, he wholly threw 
aside the moral development and progress which marked the succes- 
sion of the two dispensations : and his own dispensation which was 
given out to be an advance even upon the Gospel, and the crown of 
the whole structure of revelation, went back for its moral standard to 
a stage prior to both. It is commonly stated that the Mahometan 
code, though far inferior to that of the Gospel, was still an improve- 
ment upon the moral standard of the Arabian tribes which Mahomet 
converted. But it is one thing to institute a carnal and lower moral 
system, as an adaptation to man's weakness, at an earlier and an 
infant stage in the progress of revelation, when no better system has 
come to light ; another thing to institute the same in the maturity of 
revelation, when the legislator has a more perfect moral system before 
his eyes. The true principle of adajjtation and accommodation has 
not respect to the inferior condition of the party which is the subject 
of it singly and solely; nor is that circumstance alone one to justify 
the application of the principle : were it so, Christianity could in no 
age of the world, not even in our own, be preached to the heathen 
without some intermediate religion being preached first as an accom- 
modation. The principle of adaptation, as a legitimate rule and 
principle, has respect not only to the condition of the people to be 
converted, but also to the progress of revelation. The moral condi- 
tion of the unconverted world may be bad, and of course is bad ; but 
nothing can justify the choice of a lower religion and moral code to 
which to convert them, when there exists before us a higher one. 
Yet this was Mahomet's course ; — a course which indicates his esti- 
mate of human nature. 

Thus on the subject of polygamy, divorce, and concubinage, the 
Mahometan code was doubtless an accommodation to the moral 
standard of the Arabian tribes ; but it was an accommodation when 
the Gospel existed, and it was an accommodation much lower than 
that of the Mosaic law. Mr. Forster, who partly excuses Mahomet 
upon the ground of accommodation, says : " The same cause or causes 
which introduced into the Mosaic code the tacit admission of polygamy, 
and the more express toleration of divorce, would operate with equal 
force to extort from the legislator the recognition of the state of con- 
cubinage." " But," he adds, " the liberty of concubinage granted or 
rather preached by the pretended successor of Moses, widely separates 
the religions in their moral aspect — the studiously restricted latitude 
of the one, the unbridled and unbounded licentiousness of the other." 



VII] 



Note i 283 



(Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p. 332.) Again : " The Mahometan 
law of divorce, as it stands in the Koran, like so many other parts 
of that pretended revelation, is a compound of the precepts of 
the Pentateuch and the traditional adulterations of the Kabbins." 

(P- 330.) 

The same estimate of human nature moulds the legislator's direc- 
tions on the subject of the property rights of wives and orphans. 
Here are cases in which the proverbial rapacity of the Oriental would 
be very difficult to deal with ; and a stringent rule, which admitted 
of no escape, would provoke him, and only appear, in the eye of the 
accommodating lawgiver, certain to meet with violation, and, along 
with violation, contempt. The directions therefore in the Koran are 
constructed with evident loopholes : " And give women their dowry 
freely ; but if they voluntarily remit unto you any part of it, enjoy it 
with satisfaction and advantage." (Koran, ch. iv.) It is easy to see 
what the practical operation of such a clause as this would be, — that 
it would be no difficult matter for a man in many cases to extort or 
win a consent from a female under his power to a surrender of part 
of her property. A proviso respecting female orphans leaves a 
dangerous discretion to the guardian : " And give not unto those who 
are of weak understanding the substance which God hath appointed 
you to preserve for them " (Ibid.) : a good rule if used fairly, but 
which is obviously suggestive of an unfair use of it. It was not 
likely that an Arabian guardian would part with the legal possession 
of any property sooner than was necessary ; nor was overhaste in 
surrendering an estate to a female orphan of weak mind a fault which 
he would be in the least likely to commit. He need hardly then 
have been cautioned against it. And on the other hand, he might 
and would not improbably extract from such a rule a permission to 
constitute himself an arbitrary j udge of his ward's power to manage 
her own affairs, and to detain her property upon the slightest excuse 
on that head. 

The promulgator of a new religion, who with a high and spiritual 
code before him adopts a lower and laxer one as that of his religion, 
not only adopts that lower code but implicitly pronounces judgment 
upon the higher one which he rejects. He says virtually that he con- 
siders such a code impracticable, that it may be put forth in a book, 
but that human nature cannot be brought to practise it, and that it 
is better to have far easier laws more obeyed, than more difficult ones 
less. 



284 Notes 2, 3 [Leot. 



NOTE 2, p. 149. 

" If the special character of this deliverance be investigated, we find 
it summed up in the word nirvana, ' extinction/ ' blowing out.' Such 
was the supreme felicity of the Buddha : such the goal to which he 
ever pointed the aspirations of his followers. It was formerly dis- 
puted whether more is meant by the expression nirvdna than ' eternal 
quietude/ ' unbroken sleep, ' impenetrable apathy ; ' but the oldest 
literature of Buddhism will scarcely suffer us to doubt that Gautama. 
intended by it nothing short of absolute ' annihilation/ the destruction 
of all elements which constitute existence." (Har divide? s Christ and 
other Masters, pt. ii. p. 66.) 

Dr. Rowland Williams's representation of the Buddhist doctrine of 
nirvdna is a slight, but very slight, modification of Mr. Hard wick's 
statement. " It seems acknowledged that such a conception of pas- 
siveness in Deity affects your notions of the life to be expected here- 
after : for it takes away all clear individuality, and leaves a breathless 
absorption." (CJiristianity and Hinduism, p. 528.) The Brahman doc- 
trine of the final state professes some difference from the Buddhist ; 
but both schools maintain in common the characteristic of imperson- 
ality as attaching to the final state. " The human soul, being cased 
in a body, as in a succession of sheaths, the first of which is intellec- 
tual or apprehensive, and the second affectionate or capable of joy and 
grief, and the third merely psychic or vital, unites itself with these so 
as to form a personality, and thus individualizes itself in isolation from 
the supreme soul : therefore also in its many passages from life to life 
the unhappy soul of man carries with it this subtle body above spoken 
of, and thereby is constituted what we call a person." (Ibid. p. 92.) 
This personality, however, vanishes in the final state, when the soul 
is restored to oneness. "You will not," continues the Brahman 
speaker in the dialogue, " accept the term void as an adequate descrip- 
tion of the mysterious nature of the soul, but you will 

clearly apprehend soul [in the final state] to be unseen and ungrasped 
being, thought, knowledge, and joy, no other than very God." (Ibid.) 

NOTE 3, p. 150. 

The elevating principle in patriarchal religious life Mr. Davison 
considers to have been prophecy : — 

" Prophecy deigned to take these early disciples of it by the hand. 
"We see their personal fortunes, and in many particulars, their life and 
conduct were guided by it : this was a present pledge, a sensible 
evidence, of the faithfulness of God in all His promises ; and so the 



VII] 



Note 4 285 



supports of their faith grew with the enlarged duties of it : reserved 
and distant hopes acquired a footing to rest upon, and drew strength 
from the conviction which they had, not only of His revelation, but 
of His experienced providential care and goodness. ' They drank of 
the brook in the way.' Immediate mercies guaranteed the greater in 
prospect. Such was the service rendered to religion by prophecy in 
the Patriarchal age, which was the first sera of its more copious pro- 
mulgation." (Davison on Prophecy, p. 93.) 

Again, the institution of sacrifice, typical under the Mosaic law, 
and before it, according to the general opinion of divines, of the Great 
Atonement upon the Cross, educated the devout Jew, and imparted 
to him ideas tending toward the Gospel as their goal, so making his 
religious character an anticipation of the Christian one. 

" The action of the moral and ceremonial law combined, I conclude 
therefore to have been such as would produce, in reasonable and 
serious minds, that temper which is itself eminently Christian in its 
principle ; viz. a sense of demerit in transgression ; a willingness to 
accept a better atonement adequate to the needs of the conscience, if 
God should provide it, and a desire after inward purity, which bodily 
lustration might represent, but could not supply ; in short, that tem- 
per which David has confessed and described, when he rejects his 

reliance upon the legal rites Although it is clear there was 

no distinct perception of the Christian object of faith, we cannot rea- 
sonably doubt the penitent of the Law would have been the devout 
disciple of the Gospel, had God been pleased to reveal to him the real 
sacrifice of propitiation which the Law did not provide." (Davison on 
Prophecy, p. 143.) 

" With reference to the Patriarch and the Jew, those anticipations 
of Gospel truth had a twofold purpose, immediate and prospective : 
prospective in the gradual preparation of the world for Christianity ; 
immediate in the infusion of Christian feelings, sentiments, and hopes 

into the bosoms of the faithful even in the earliest times 

Such were the sentiments of Abraham, when at the successive resting- 
places in his pilgrimage ' he buildecl an altar unto the Lord, and called 
on the name of the Lord/ And such no doubt were the sentiments 
of many a primitive worshipper, when he laid his hand and confessed 
his guilt upon the head of the victim." (Dr. Hawkins's Discourses on 
the Historical Scriptures, p. 154.) 

"Imo vero, ut sic loquar, quemadmodum se Veritas habet, non 
nominum consuetudo, Christianus etiam ille tunc populus fuit." 
(Augustine, Serm. 300.) 

NOTE 4, p. 154. 

" II est dangereux de trop faire voir a l'homme combien il est egal 
aux betes, sans lui montrer sa grandeur. II est encore dangereux de 
lui trop faire voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. 



286 Note 5 [Lect. 

" II est non seulement impossible mais inutile de connaitre Dieu 
sans J.-C. lis ne s'en sont pas eloignes, mais approches ; lis ne se 
sont pas abaisses mais. . . . Quo quisquam optimus est, pessimus si hoc 
ipsum quod sit optimus ascribat sibi. 

" Aussi ceux qui ont connu Dieu sans connaitre leur misere ne l'ont 
pas glorifie mais s'en sont glorifies. Quia non cognovit per sapientiam, 
placuit Deo per stultitiam prcedicationis salvos facer e. 

" Non seulement nous ne connaissons Dieu que par J.-C. mais nous 
ne nous connaissons nous memes que par J.-C." (Pensees de Pascal, pp. 
85,316,317-) 

See some valuable remarks on the practical inefficiency of Platonic 
doctrine in the Cliristian Remembrancer, October, 1863 : Article on 
Miracles, p. 271. 

NOTE 5, p. 157. 

"If at the present day any very extraordinary and unaccountable 
fact were exhibited before the eyes of an unbiassed, educated, well- 
informed individual, and supposing all suspicion of imposture put out 
of the question, his only conclusion would be that it was something 
he was unable at present to explain ; and if at all versed in physical 
studies, he would not for an instant doubt either that it was really 
due to some natural cause, or that if properly recorded and examined, 
it would at some future time receive its explanation by the advance 
of discovery . 

" It is thus the prevalent conviction that at the present day miracles 
are not to be expected, and consequently alleged marvels are com- 
monly discredited." (Powell's Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 
107.) 

Mr. Leckie says : — 

" There is certainly no change in the history of the last 300 years 
more striking or suggestive, than that which has taken place in the 
estimate of the miraculous. At present nearly all educated men re- 
ceive an account of a miracle taking place in their own day, with an 
absolute and derisive credulity, which dispenses with all examination 
of the evidence. Although they may be entirely unable to give a 
satisfactory explanation of some phenomena that have taken place, 
they never on that account dream of ascribing them to supernatural 
agency, such an hypothesis being, as they believe, altogether beyond 
the range of reasonable discussion. Yet a few centuries ago, there 
was no solution to which the mind of men turned more readily in 
every perplexity." (Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 1.) 

The above extract, which is the opening paragraph of Mr. Leckie's 
work, is not a correct representation of the belief of modern society. 
Undoubtedly there is a section of the community whose belief is cor- 



VII] 



Note 5 287 



rectly represented by it ; but that is not a fact which meets the case : 
the assertion is that educated society as a whole thinks a miracle now- 
a-days impossible ; and that it is society as a whole which does so, is 
the very point. But is this true ? Religious society, i.e. religious in 
its belief, is the greater part by far of modern educated society. So- 
ciety as a whole then, making allowance for exceptions, is religious 
society. And the question is, what does such society think ? what 
would be a fair account of its state of mind ? Writers who forestall 
what appears to them the unerring result of certain tendencies, un- 
consciously adopt as representative society that section of it which 
has already arrived at this expected result : but they must be recalled 
to fact. 

The truth is, then, that no broad or round statement could do 
justice to the attitude of mind in which religious society of this day 
stands toward the hodiernal miraculous. There is a presumption felt 
against it, a general expectation that a supernatural event will not 
occur now ; but this is with a reserve. Religious persons do not allow 
themselves to be condemned to such simplicity of point of view as 
admits of being represented by round statements. The presumption 
against the hodiernal miraculous is not an absolute or logical position. 
It would be contrary to the very principles of their religious belief, 
and to their deepest convictions to make it such. 

I have mentioned the belief in special providences as a belief in a 
certain remote miraculous agency. But we may appeal to the actual 
testimony of conversation, which is the best exponent of the belief of 
society, whether the idea of the possibility of supernatural events 
happening now is not a very commonly received and entertained one? 
Has the religious and serious literature, again, of the present day de- 
parted in any material respect from the standard of belief on this sub- 
ject which we meet in the religious writers of the last century ; e.g. 
Dr. Johnson and Dr. Doddridge ? These two writers are far from 
being regarded now as obsolete or antiquated, they are popular 
authors now, they are favourites with the public, their writings are 
read without the least idea that there is any chasm intervening be- 
tween them and modern thought ; they are resorted to very much as 
if they were writers of our own day. Indeed, " the obstinate prin- 
ciple of rationality," which Dr. Johnson attributed to himself, has 
been a great element in his popularity. But these two writers, as is 
well known, maintained the credibility of the occurrence of super- 
natural events now. " It is proper," says Boswell, " once for all to 
give a true and fair statement of Johnson's way of talking upon the 
question, whether departed spirits are ever permitted to appear in 



288 Note 5 [Lect. 

this world, or in any way to operate upon human life. He has been 
ignorantly misrepresented as weakly credulous upon that subject ; 
and, therefore, though I feel an inclination to disdain and treat with 
silent contempt so foolish a notion concerning my illustrious friend, 
yet, as I find it has gained ground, it is necessary to refute it. The 
real fact then is, that Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and 
such a rational respect for testimony, as to make him submit his 
understanding to what was authoritatively proved, though he could 
not comprehend why it was so. Being thus disposed he was willing 
to inquire into the truth of any relation of supernatural agency, a 
general belief of which has prevailed in all ages and nations. But so 
far was he from being the dupe of implicit faith, that he examined the 
matter with zealous attention, and no .man was more ready to refute 
its falsehood, when he had discovered it." Dr. Doddridge inserted 
in his Life of Colonel Gardiner the well-known account of the vision 
which appeared to him and led to his conversion. Without entering 
then into any criticism of this or other such accounts, I say that such 
manifestations of belief in these and other writers do not appear to 
religious readers of the present day in the light of irrational eccentri- 
cities or mere obsolete notions: they fall in with a current and 
established standard of belief. 

When it is said that educated society of the present day rejects the 
miracles of the present day, it should be remembered what sort of 
miracles the miracles of the present day are. We speak now of 
classes of miracles. What are these ? Vulgar witchcraft and magic ; 
again spiritualist miracles ; again controversial miracles in the 
Eoman Church connected with the worship of the Virgin and other 
popular 'doctrines ; that is to say, either disreputable miracles, or 
miracles connected simply with fashionable amusement and curiosity, 
or miracles derived from a source of imposture and delusion, so old 
and well-known that it has become a byword and a proverb. There 
is a growth and an accumulation of human judgment, with regard to 
the value of the polemical class of miracles, of which rational men 
have a right to avail themselves. Modern society then, it is said, re- 
jects the miracles which occur now, and these are, the miracles which 
occur now. When the rejection of miracles which happen now is 
alleged, it should also be mentioned what sort of miracles they are 
which now happen. 

Can any comparison be made, in point of dignity and claim to 
respect, between such supernaturalism as this and the power which 
broke through the barrier of nature to guarantee a revelation which 



VII] Note 5 289 

has, as a matter of fact, changed the condition of the world and 
raised human nature 1 

The scientific era of the world has doubtless been an important 
period in the education of mankind ; and with other parts of the mind 
of man, his belief in the marvellous has received an education. It 
has worked itself out of the wildness, the extravagance, and the rank 
luxuriance of former ages ; it has disciplined itself ; it has discovered 
its own faults, and learned not to mistake the want of discrimination 
for reverence, and the idle reception of every story for faith. This is 
educated belief in the supernatural. It is so tempered and cautious, 
and its disposition to assertion is so checked, that, compared with the 
reckless audacity of medieval belief, it looks to many like disbelief. 
The positive element in it is overwhelmed by the juxtaposition with 
the monstrous credulity which it has superseded ; the negative 
element is alone seen. But it is not disbelief notwithstanding. 
Modern educated society is not unmoored from the belief in the 
hodiernal supernatural, as a possibility. This is a question of fact. 
Theory may be stated absolutely, and tendencies may be asserted 
absolutely and summarily, although such assertions are hazardous ; 
but when persons come to state matters of fact, as e.g. what is the 
sentiment and belief of society at the present day upon the subject of 
the hodiernal supernatural, the statement should be faithful to the 
modifications of actual fact. Mr. Leckie's statement is not ; it is un- 
true ; and the real state of the case requires another statement, which 
enters Teally into particulars and into the variety of elements in the 
mind of modern society. 

The argument that the actual progress of society has been fatal to 
a great deal of belief, that a great deal of supernaturalism which was 
once accepted by the intelligent and educated of every age is now 
universally rejected, is undoubtedly a potent weapon in the hands of 
unbelief. It has that strength winch is always gained by an appeal 
to actual facts ; even though they be one particular and limited class 
of facts. It is an argument which must, in the nature of the case, be 
very convincing as condemnatory of the miraculous evidences of 
Christianity, to those who decide the question of revelation and its 
evidences by a rough application of those common-sense views which 
are nearest at hand and are the easiest to hit on. It looks at first 
sight very like common sense to say, ' As the world has become more 
civilized, so much belief in the supernatural has gone ; therefore, as 
civilization increases, the rest will go too ; ' but when we go a little 
deeper we find that it is common sense judging upon narrow and 
limited data, not having the whole of the case before it. Coramon 

T 



290 Note .5 [Lect. 

sense is a correct guide or not, according to the amount of knowledge 
upon which it goes ; ignorant common sense makes the greatest mis- 
takes ; rough or careless common sense, which overlooks facts and 
passes over distinctions, also makes the greatest mistakes. Common 
sense is the faculty of judging correctly upon the data which are be- 
fore it ; but it does not in the least imply possessing or realizing all 
the proper data. The present is a case in point. Here is a position 
affecting a common-sense sound, which prophesies the total disbeliei 
in the supernatural ; but the fact which it has before it, and upon 
which it judges, is one kind or rank of supernaturalism alone, viz., 
the grossest, the coarsest, the most revolting, absurd and monstrous. 
The belief in this has disappeared with growing civilization, and 
therefore a common sense which only has this field of the super- 
natural before it, decides that all belief in the supernatural will in 
time disappear. It is a position built upon the roughest and most 
external historical data, without taking into account the inner 
religious mind of man, and the insight which the religious sense im- 
parts, and by which it enables man to discriminate between different 
kinds of supernatural pretensions, their intrinsic character, and their 
evidences. 

We commonly indeed associate common sense with the use of the 
readier and more tangible and palpable sort of data, and call the 
faculty of judging upon these data by that name. If we allow this 
appropriation of the term in the present case, then the distinction 
which I have just drawn may be expressed thus. In matters of 
ordinary life common sense of itself rules ; but in religious questions 
the religious sense is a part of common sense, and common sense is 
imperfect and defective unless it has the supplement of the religious 
sense. When then we come to judge of the evidences of a revelation 
and the Christian miracles, we are bound, even on principles of com- 
mon sense, to listen to what the religious sense has to suggest. But 
the first result of religious thought and feeling is an immense dis- 
tinction between the vulgar supernaturalism of uncivilized ages and 
the Gospel miracles ; a distinction in the reason and object of the 
miracles, in their character, in the character of Him in whom they 
centre, and in the character of the witnesses. Under the influence of 
a religious insight, this distinction is perfectly obvious and natural, 
or is a part of common sense. More than this, religious thought and 
feeling supply a very good and a perfectly natural reason why the 
evidences of revelation should not meet the test of easy common 
sense ; because they suggest that those evidences were intended and 
designed for those who had cultivated the religious sense. 



VII] 



Note 5 29; 



Let us suppose a person of deep religious mind, who felt strongly 
that the evidences of revelation could not be seen in their proper 
strength without the religious sense and temper, i.e. by common sense 
alone ; and that it was in harmony with the Divine character that 
this failure to satisfy common sense alone should be designed. It is 
clear that his rationale of Christian evidence is an answer by antici- 
pation to Mr. Leckie's attack ; that it cuts under it, and takes, by a 
previous admission, the ground from underneath an argument which 
depends entirely for its force upon a rough prima facie common 
sense, which does not take into account the reasons and considera- 
tions which naturally spring out of the religious sense. 

The progress of enquiry has been fatal to a great deal of belief in 
other instances besides the supernatural ; and yet it has only in those 
instances castigated and educated the belief, and not destroyed it. 
Take, e.g., the doctrine of final causes. We know the abuses and 
extravagancies with which this doctrine was taught in the Middle 
Ages, and by which it was perverted, as Bacon so often complains, to 
the total neglect of the search for physical causes. The philosopher 
went through nature with the maxim of Aristotle in his mouth, that 
" Nature made nothing in vain," and applied it as the sole reason and 
account to be given of every arrangement in nature. " Did you ask 
what was the cause of the eyebrows ? " says Bacon, " you were told 
it was the design to defend the eyes. Did you ask what was the 
cause of the hardness of the hides of animals ? you were told that it 
was the design to protect them from the cold. Did you ask what was 
the cause of the leaves of trees ? the reply was, that it was the 
design to give shelter to the fruit. Did you ask what caused the 
bones ? you were told it was the design to supply the body with a 
framework to support it. Did you ask what caused the clouds in the 
sky ? you were told that it was the design to supply the earth with 
rain and moisture. Did you ask the cause of the earth's denseness 
and solidity ? you were told it was the design to furnish animals with 
a standing-ground and dwelling-place." (De Augm. 1. iii. ch. iv.) In 
this way, in every case in which a cause was wanted for a natural 
effect, the vacuum was filled up with an immediate act of the Deity, 
creating that particular physical condition of things, on account of its 
serviceableness and use ; and here all enquiry stopped. It did not 
occur, e.g. to anybody, as Bacon says, that " there was a physical cause 
for the hardness of the hides of beasts, in the contraction of the pores 
by the cold and exposure to the outer air; besides & final cause, in the 
defence of the animal from the weather. And so throughout." The 
result/ was, he continues, ingens scientiarum detrimentum. "The 



292 Note 5 [Lect. 

treating of final causes in physics, expelled and cast out the inquisi- 
tion of physical causes, and was the occasion 'of men resting in mere 
specious and shadowy account of things, instead of penetrating to 
the real natural reasons." 

This mischievous and despotic reign of final causes has been long 
over, and in innumerable instances where, before the advance of 
science, an act of creating design stood as the sole cause of a par- 
ticular natural arrangement, that design has been displaced as the 
immediate cause, and a purely physical cause has been inserted in 
its place. Throughout the whole realm of nature blind agents or 
physical laws have been discovered, which, occupy the next place to 
the ultimate facts of which the reason is enquired ; and what directly 
precedes these natural dispositions of things, is found to be not design 
but material - agency producing the effect in question without an 
intention. The laws of motion and gravitation, e.g. are blind agents, 
which are the immediate producers of the revolutions of the heavenly 
bodies. And a succession of blind physical causes has produced the 
consistency, and the atmosphere of this earth — all that condition of 
it which makes it fit for the habitation of men. The discovery of 
this material agency in the production of the existing condition of 
nature, has been and is now extending, and in investigating the 
works of creation we are more and more met by intervening classes 
of causes which are purely natural. And, as usual, theory is in 
advance of facts, and threatens such large additions to the empire of 
physical causation, and such, an immense further withdrawal of 
nature from the immediate action of design, that some minds have 
been filled with serious apprehensions. Speculation has invaded the 
realm of animal nature, and proposes to account even for those 
organic animal structures which are the most conspicuous instances 
of design, and which appear to come straight from the hands of the 
Divine Artificer, by material agency, and blind combinations of 
circumstances acting in the place next and immediate to the final 
result. 

But, without going to theories, there can be no doubt that the 
direct action of final causes has thus been drawn back in multitudes 
of instances by solid observation, and been supplanted in tlie par- 
ticular place hitherto assigned to them, by physical causes. And yet 
no philosophical mind sees in this whole progress of scientific dis- 
covery, any real danger to the substance of the doctrine of final 
causes. Science does not indeed itself, with all its new introduced 
apparatus of physical causes, pretend to be able to do without a 
Designing Mind in nature. The boldest school of speculation even, 



VII] Note 5 293 

in behalf of physical causes, requires some organic substance to begin 
with of which design can be the sole account; for it is only an 
elementary organic structure, which could be capable of an organic 
development ; over which combinations of circumstances afterwards 
could have that effect of bringing it out and amplifying it and 
elaborating it as an organic formation. The adaptation then of the 
original framework of nature to an intricate and unlimited develop- 
ment by subsequent material causes remains still a proof of Design 
in nature. "Peut-etre une etude plus approfondie," says a dis- 
tinguished champion of Design, M. Paul Janet — " nous apprendra-t- 
elle a demeler quelque chose reelle qui nous echappe, et nous mon- 
trera un effet naturel la oil nous croyons voir la main d'une volonte 
prevoyante.'' But he sees no danger to Design in the admission. 
The whole intelligence of mankind, in short, still maintains the evi- 
dence of design or final causes in the constitution of nature. 

The doctrine of final causes then has since the extravagant, hasty, 
and careless application of it in the middle ages, received from the 
progress of science an education; it has been corrected by observa- 
tion ; it has been checked and modified by the discovery of material 
causes next in succession to the ultimate results in nature. But the 
doctrine of final causes has still been modified only, not disproved 
or superseded ; it still is as necessary and as true a doctrine, in the 
eye of human reason, as it ever was ; and the proof of it is only 
removed a step further back. The distinction by which Bacon 
guaranteed its safety against peril from science, then in its dawn, has 
been verified by science in its progress. " Neque vero ista res in 
dubium vocat providentiam divinam, aut ei quicquam derogat ; sed 
potius eamdem miris modis confirmat et evehit. Nam sicut in rebus 
civilibus prudentia politica fuerit altior et mirabilior, si quis opera 
aliorum ad suos fines et desideria abuti possit, quibus tamen nihil 
consilii sui impertit (ut interim ea agant quae ipse velit neutiquam 
vero se hoc facere intelligant) quam si consilia sua cum administris 
voluntatis suae communicaret : sic Dei sapientia effulget mirabilius, 
cum natura aliud agit, providentia aliud elicit; quam si singulis 
schematibus et motibus naturalibus, providentiae characteres essent 
impressi." (De Augm. 1. iii. ch. iv.) It would appear from modern 
discovery that Creative design was more distant and circuitous than 
the design of the human artificer in constructing a machine ; was 
in less immediate contact with the result, and of earlier date in 
scheme ; that it acted on a larger scale by bringing things together 
from different and distant quarters, and by the use of contingent 
materials, wbow pl^-e in the plan was only seen by the light of the 



294 Note i [Lect. 

end ; that it threw itself upon a longer series of media, interposing 
between the spring of operations and the result. But creative design 
is not obscured on these accounts, but only appears the more subtle, 
powerful, and grand. 

The case is substantially the same with respect to the supernatural. 
The doctrine of the supernatural was pushed to extravagant and 
absurd lengths in uncivilized ages, it ran riot and set itself up as the 
universal account of what was extraordinary in the world and human 
life. It has in later times undergone a check, and been expelled 
from much ground which it had unlawfully occupied. Natural 
causes have been discovered of eccentric phenomena which were once 
attributed universally to a supernatural agency. But the doctrine 
of the supernatural, like the doctrine of final causes, has still only 
been educated, and not superseded. It has been stripped of its 
monstrous growth and enormities, but it still exists in the reason 
of man, and the principle has not been shaken. 



LECTUEE VIII 

NOTE 1, p. 165. 

"This important circumstance," says Dr. Newman, "must be 
considered, which is as clear as it is decisive, that the Fathers speak 
of miracles as having in one sense ceased with the Apostolic period ; 
— that is, (considering they elsewhere speak of miracles as existing 
in their own times,) they say that Apostolic miracles, or miracles like 
the Apostles', whether in their object, cogency, impressiveness, or 
character, were no longer of occurrence in the Church ; an interpre- 
tation which they themselves in some passages give to their own 
words. ' Argue not/ says St. Chrysostom, ' because miracles do not 

happen now, that they did not happen then In those times 

they were profitable, and now they are not.' He proceeds to say 
that, in spite of this difference, the mode of conviction was sub- 
stantially the same. ' We persuade not by philosophical reasonings, 
but from Divine Scripture, and we recommend what we say by the 
miracles then done. And then they persuaded not by miracles only, 
but by discussion.' And presently he adds, ' The more evident and 
constraining are the things which happen, the less room there is for 
faith.' (Horn, in 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3.) Again, in another part of his 
works : ' "Why are there not those now who raise the dead and per- 
form cures ? I will not say why not ; rather, why are there not 
those now who despise the present life ? Why serve we God for 
hire? When however nature was weak, when faith had to be 
planted, then there were many such; but now He wills, not that 



VIII] Note i 295 

we should hang on these miracles, but be ready for death.' (Horn. 
VIII. in Col. s. 5.) 

" In like manner St. Augustine introduces his catalogue of con- 
temporary miracles by stating and allowing the objection that 
miracles were not then as they had been. ' Why, say they, do not 
these miracles take place now, which, as you preach to us, took place 
once ? I might answer that they were necessary before the world 
believed, that it might believe.' (I)e Civ. Dei, xxii. 8.) He then goes 
on to say that miracles were wrought in his time, only they were not 
so public and well-attested as the miracles of the Gospel." (Essay on 
the Miracles of the Early Ages, p. 39.) 

The confession of the Fathers that miracles had ceased in their 
days, while at the same time they allude to miracles going on in 
their day, has evidently reference to the hind of miracles which the 
current marvels of their own day were, as compared with the body 
of Gospel miracles. In the body of Gospel miracles, the greater 
miracles, as they are called, miracles of a sublime and majestic type 
indicative of a supreme dominion over nature, occupy a prominent 
place ; amid the current miracles of the Patristic age they appear 
so rarely, and, when they do appear, are mentioned with so little of 
that circumstance and particularity which constitute a condition of 
truth in facts, that they do not materially affect the character and 
rank of those miracles as a mass. As a body they consist of exor- 
cisms, visions, cures in answer to prayer ; the latter in the fourth 
century becoming connected with the memories and relics of par- 
ticular saints and martyrs. Irenseus, in a well-known passage 
(Contra Hozr. ii. 31), alludes to some who had been raised to life 
again by the prayers of the Churcli — pera vrjerelas ttoX\t]s /cat XiraveLas 
iirt<rTpe\{/e t6 irvevjia rod TereXevTrjKOTos. But the reference is so vague 
that it possesses but little weight as testimony. " Irenaeus," observes 
Dr. Hey, " only affirms this in general without mentioning any 
particular instance, and it is somewhat strange that no instance was 
ever produced in the three first centuries There is not how- 
ever the same want of instances wdth regard to the other branches 
of miracles said to have been performed in the Church, namely, 
seeing visions, prophesying, healing diseases, curing demoniacs, and 
some others." (Kaye's Tertullian, p. 168.) Neander doubts whether 
Irenseus is clear in his own mind as to what he intended to assert 
here, and supposes that he may not have meant by the death from 
which the persons had been raised real death, but only some form of 
apparent death (Church History, sect, i.), but at any rate the indefinite- 
ness of the reference takes away all accuracy from the reported fact. 
Professor Blunt attaches somewhat more value to the statement of 



296 Note i [Lect. 

Irenseus than either Neander or Hey, but still comments on the 
obvious vagueness and indefiniteness of it : — 

" In these instances (exorcism and others) he uses the present 
tense, Bal/Aovas eXaijvovcri, irpoyuucriv %x ova ' t > T0 ^ s fcdfivovras IQptcu, x a P l< *~ 
fiara e^vTUv, iravTodaTrah y\wacrais XoXo^ptcov, ra KpticpLO. tQv avdpumwv 
els (pavepbv aydvrwv. But when the miracle of raising the dead is 
touched on, the expressions are less definite, saepe evenit fieri, ttoW&kis, 
the phrase indefinite as to time — 6 tctipios, ol aTrdcrroXoc, i) ir daa iKKXyjaia, 
the language again indefinite as to agents — so the tense in these cases 
is no longer the present, but the aorist, rb irvedfia rod t€T€\€vt7]k6tos 
€TrevTpe\pe, the spirit of the dead returned — ixaphdrj, he was granted 
to the prayers of the saints — vexpol rjyepdiqaav k<zI irap^eivav <ri/p ijpuu, 
the dead have been raised up, and have continued with us. There is 
something remarkable, at least, in the change of tense, something 
which, when coupled with the looser construction of the sentences, 
would lead us to think that though Irenaeus had no doubt of the 
fact of the resurrection of the dead having been effected by the 
brethren, he had not witnessed a case with his own eyes." (Blunt on 
the Early Fathers, p. 387.) 

Augustine agacn, long after, alludes in his list of miracles (Be Civ. 
Dei, xxii. 8) to some cases in which persons had been raised to life 
again by prayer and the intercession of martyrs, whose relics were 
applied. But though Augustine relates with great particularity and 
length of detail some cases of recoveries from complaints in answer 
to prayer, his notices of the cases in which persons had been raised 
to life again are so short, bare, and summary, that they evidently 
represent no more than mere report, and report of a very vague kind. 
Indeed, with the preface which he prefixes to his list, he cannot be 
said even to profess to guarantee the truth or accuracy of the different 
instances contained in it. " Hsec autem, ubicunque fiunt, ibi sciuntur 
vix a tota ipsa civitate vel quocunque commanentium loco. Nam 
plerumque etiam ibi paucissimi sciunt, ignorantibus cseteris, maxime 
si magna sit civitas ; et quando alibi aliisque narrantur, non tantum 
ea commendat auctoritas, ut sine difficultate vel dubitatione cre- 
dantur, quamvis Christianis fidelibus a fidelibus indicentur." He 
puts down the cases as he received them then, without pledging 
himself to their authenticity. " Eucharius presbyter .... mortuus 
sic jacebat ut ei jam pollices ligarentur: opitulatione memorati 
martyris, cum de memoria ejus reportata fuisset et super jacentis 

coipus missa ipsius presbyteri tunica, suscitatus est Audurus 

nomen est fundi, ubi ecclesia est et in ea memoria Stephani martyris. 
Puerum quendam parvulum, cum in area luderet, exorbitantes boves 
qui vehiculum trahebant, rota obtriverunt, et confestim palpitavit 



VIII] 



Note i 297 



exspirans. Hunc mater arreptum ad eandem memoriam posuit ; et 
non solum revixit, verum etiam illsesus apparuit." There are three 
other cases of the same kind, in which there is nothing to verify the 
death from which the return to life is said to take place, as being 
more than mere suspension of the vital powers ; but the writer does 
not go into particulars of description or proof, but simply inserts 
them in his list as they have been reported to him. 

The comments of the heathen world upon the miracle of our Lord's 
Resurrection, which are incidentally alluded to in the Apologetic and 
other treatises of the Fathers, shew how completely the heathen dis- 
tinguished between their own current miraculous pretensions and real 
and undoubted miracles, where they had the opportunity of compar- 
ing the two. They had their own popular and established super- 
naturalism, which they professedly respected and accepted ; their 
exorcisms, their rights of augury, their oracles, their miraculous 
cures, which were registered in temples ; but as soon as a miraculous 
fact was presented to them, about which there could be no doubt that 
it was miraculous, they exhibited as much astonishment and incre- 
dulity as if they only pretended to believe in the powers of nature 
and the order of nature. That a man should rise from the dead was 
treated by them as an absolutely incredible fact. " The mystery of 
the Kesurrection," says Origen, who speaks of it as including the 
miracle of Christ's Resurrection, which he has just mentioned, " is 
spoken of by the unbelieving with ridicule" — QpvWeircu ye\d>fievov 
inrb tC)v diriarup. (Contra Gels. lib. i. s. 7.) Celsus places the account 
of our Lord's Resurrection in the same list with the legendary de- 
scents of Zamolxis, Rhampsinitus, Orpheus, Protesilaus, Hercules, 
and Theseus, into the infernal regions, and their return thence. " Has 
any one," he asks, " who has been really dead ever risen again 1 " 
(lib. ii. s. 55.) Celsus, it is true, did not profess much belief in cur- 
rent heathen supernaturalism ; he speaks however of the art of magic 
not like one who wholly rejected it, excepting philosophers from lia- 
bility to the magician's influence, just as Origen excepted devout 
Christians from the same. (lib. vi. s. 41.) "Celsus," says Neander, 
" expresses himself as though he considered magic to be an art pos- 
sessed of a certain power, though held by him in no great account.'"' 
(Clmrch History, sect. 1.) Csecilius, the representative of heathenism 
in the " Octavius" of Minutius Felix, professes his belief in the rites 
of augury, in heathen prophecy, and in various heathen miracles ; 
but he declares that he cannot believe that any one has ever risen 
again from the dead ; — " Quis unus ullus ab inferis remeavit horarum 
saltern commeatu?" (c. vii. xi.) The heathen Autolycus challenges 



Notes 2, 3 [Lect. 



Theophilus to produce an instance of a dead man rising to life again. 
Augustine, in the 22nd book of the " Be Civitate Dei," devotes him- 
self to the defence of the doctrine of the resurrection, against the 
notion of the philosophical heathens that it was a simple impossi- 
bility ; and the particular resurrection of Christ is defended against 
the same charge. " Sed hoc incredibile fuit aliquando : ecce jam cre- 
tlidit mundus sublatum Christi corpus in cajlum, resurrexionem 
carnis." (c. v.) 

NOTE 2, p. 178. 

" We lay out of the case such stories of supernatural events as require 
on the part of the hearer nothing more than an otiose assent ; stories 
upon which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved, nothing is 
to be done or changed in consequence of believing them. Such stories are 
credited, if the careless assent that is given to them deserve that name, 
more by the indolence of the hearer, than by his judgment ; or, 
though not much credited, are passed from one to another without 
inquiry or resistance." (Paley's Evidences, p. 131.) 



NOTE 3, p. 180. 

" One of the saddest portions of modern controversy," says Dr. 
Pusey, " is the thought how much is owing to forged writings ; to 
what extent the prevailing system as to the Blessed Virgin came in 
upon the authority of writings which Koman Catholic critics now own 
to have been wrongly ascribed to the great Fathers whose names they 
bear ; to what extent the present relation of Rome to the Eastern 

Church and to ourselves is owing to the forged Decretals The 

forgery of the Decretals after they had ' passed for true during eight 
centuries' was owned by all, even by the Church of Rome. But the 
system built upon that forgery abides still." (An Eirenicon, pp. 236, 

2550 

" Up to this period the Decretals, the letters or edicts of the 
Bishops of Rome, according to the authorized or common collection 
of Dionysius, commenced with Pope Siricius, towards the close of the 
fourth century. To the collection of Dionysius was added that of 
the authentic councils, which bore the name of Isidore of Seville. 
On a sudden was promulgated, unannounced, without preparation, 
not absolutely unquestioned, but apparently overawing at once all 
doubt, a new code, which to the former authentic documents added 
fifty-nine letters and decrees of the twenty oldest Popes from Clement 
lo Melchiades, and the donation of Constantiue ; and in the third 
part, among the decrees of the Popes and of the councils from Silves- 
ter to Gregory II., thirty-nine false decrees, and the acts of several 



VIII] Note 3 299 

unauthentic councils. In this vast manual of sacerdotal Christianity 
the Popes appear from the first the parents, guardians, legislators of 

the faith throughout the whole world The author or authors 

of this most audacious and elaborate of pious frauds are unknown ; 
the date and place of its compilation are driven into such narrow 
limits that they may be determined within a few years, and within a 
very circumscribed region. The false Decretals came not from Kome ; 
the' time of their arrival at Eome, after they were known beyond the 
Alps, appears almost certain. In one year Nicholas I. is apparently 
ignorant of their existence, the next he speaks of them with full 
knowledge." (Milman's Latin Christianity, pp. 303, 305.) 

A writer in the Christian Eemembrancer, April 1854, has investi- 
gated with the most elaborate care and most penetrating research the 
miracle of the " House of Loretto." He concludes : — 

" It is a fiction that has exercised and is still exercising enormous 

practical influence throughout Western Christendom It has 

amassed treasures that would have fed almost the entire poor of 
Europe for their lives. It has extorted homage from Erasmus, from 
Descartes. Into it has been introduced the purest of virgins and 
holiest of mothers, for the purpose of stamping with her authority the 
clumsiest as well as the falsest of all legends. It forms, finally, the 
sixth Lection of a special office set forth by Papal infallibility, and by 
no means obsolete, in which Almighty God is venerated for a mira- 
culous exercise of His power, which, according to the framers of the 
story, clearly ought to have been exerted, but never was ! While the 
seventh Lection consists of a portion of the first chapter of St. Luke's 
Gospel, in the preceding one — as it were to illustrate the contrast be- 
tween light and darkness — what follows is assumed to be no less 
trustworthy. 

"'The house in which this Virgin was born, hallowed by the 
divine mysteries, and snatched by the ministry of angels out of the 
hand of the infidel, was translated first into Dalmatia, and afterwards 
into the territory of Loretto, in the province of Picenum, during the 
Pontificate of the holy Celestine V. And it is proved to be the very 
one in which the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us, as 
well by papal diplomas and the abundant veneration of the whole 
world, as also by the constant power of miracles and the grace of 
heavenly benefits. Whereupon Innocent XII., moved by these 
things, in order that the faithful might be more effectually stirred up, 
and put in mind of the worship of our most beloved mother, gave 
directions to celebrate with mass and office appropriate, the transla- 
tion of the said holy house, which is observed throughout the whole 
province of Picenum with anniversary solemnity.' 

" What a train of melancholy reflections is thus afforded by Decem- 
ber 10th ! The largest portion of Christendom by far insisting upon 
Papal infallibility as a vital principle ; Papal infallibility thus so- 
lemnly pledged to an untruth ! * 



300 Notes 4, 5 [Lect. 



NOTE 4, p. i8r. 

" Solas pro sanctitate virtutes exposcere videtur S. Joannes Chry- 
sostomus in inscript. actorum (pag. 64, Ojper. torn. 3): Actio quidem 
bona etiam sine signis eos, a quibus peracta fuerit, introducit in caelum. 
Miraculum autem et signum absque conversatione deducere ad vestibula 
ilia non possunt : quod ipsum latius prosequitur Anastasius Episcopus 
Nicaenus, qui vixit post Concilium Trullanum (teste Cardinal! Bellar- 
mino de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis) in opere cui titulus, De qucestionibus 
in sacram Scripturam, qu. 23. torn. 1. Biblioih. Patrum, ubi ait : Non 
oportet autem aut virum orthodoxum ex signis, aut Prophetam dijudicare, 
quod sit sanctus ; sed ex eo quod vitam recte instituit, &c. Quoniam 
ergo, ut ostensum est, a peccatoribus et incredulis sape fiunt signa et pro- 
phetice per quamdam dispensationem, non oportet de cetero ex rebus ejus- 
modi dijudicare quempiam, ut sit sanctus ; sed ex eorum fructibus, ut 
dicit Dominus, cognoscetis eos. Fructus veri et spiritalis viri ostendit 
etiam Apostolus dicens ; Fructus autem spiritus est charitas, gaudium, 
pax, Fides, Mansuetudo, continentia. Supra vidimus, B. Petrum 
Damiani nulla in historia vitee S. Dominici Loricati miracula nar- 
rasse, et respondisse, id mirum esse non debere, cum nee legator, 
ullum factum fuisse miraculum a Beatissima Virgine Maria, nee a S. 
Joanne Baptista. Callisto II. summo Pontifici miracula requirenti 
pro Canonizatione S. Conradi Episcopi Constantiensis Ulricus ejus- 
dem Ecclesise Episcopus ita respondit (apud Pistorium Script, rer. 
Germ. torn. 3. p. 63 8): Operam dedi, ex Patrum schedules, hujus Viri 
dignissimam Deo conversationem potius, quam miracula, quo3 nonnum- 
quam reprobis cum Sanctis communia sunt, contmentibus, sequens opus- 
culum colligere, vestrozque sublimitati examinandum dirigere 

" At, bis minime obstantibus, de necessitate turn virtutum, aut 
martyrii, turn miraculorum in causis Beatificationis et Canonizationis 
nulla rationabilis dubitatio esse potest, uti ssepe in bujus operis de- 

cursu a nobis dictum est Ad persuadendam miraculorum 

necessitatem in causis Beatificationis et Canonizationis satis superque 
esset asserere, inconcussam semper fuisse et esse Apostolicae sedis 
praxim miracula in bis causis requirendi." (Benedict XIV. , Opera, lib. 
iv. pars Hi. c. 5. §§ 2, 4.) 



NOTE 5, p. 182. 

It is disputed when ecclesiastical miracles begin. Dr. Hey denies 
that the Apostolical Fathers make any allusions to themselves working 
miracles : — 

" For fifty years after the ascension of Christ, none of the Fathers 
made any pretensions to the possession of miraculous powers. We 
have already spoken, in a former Lecture, of those Fathers who are 



VIII] 



Note 5 301 



called the Apostolic, of Ignatius, Poly carp, Barnabas, Hernias ; now 
it is an historical truth not to be omitted, that not one of those pious 
men, though they were the principal governors of the Church, and the 
immediate successors of the Apostles in that government (as well as 
their companions and friends), ever speaks of himself as capable of 
counteracting the ordinary powers of nature ; they all endeavour to 
inculcate the morality and religion of the Gospel, but that merely as 
men, possessed indeed of the sense and meaning of the sacred writers, 

but entirely void of their extraordinary power I only affirm, 

however, that none of the Apostolic Fathers speaks of himself as en- 
dued with a power of working miracles ; we must not absolutely say 
that no miracles have ever been said to be wrought about the time 
they lived: because there is a very celebrated letter extant from 
the Church of Smyrna, giving an account of the martyrdom of Poly- 
carp, which is said to have been attended with circumstances suffi- 
ciently miraculous." (Kaye's Tertullian, p. 165.) 

Professor Blunt decides that they allude to miracles as going on in 
the Church : — 

" It has been disputed whether the Apostolical Fathers, properly so 
called, speak of contemporary miracles at all. Considering how short 
are their works, and the practical purpose for which most of them are 
written, the absence of all allusion to miracles in them would prove 
little or nothing, and might well be accidental. Such an expression, 
however, as that of Clemens Komanus, that there was in the Church of 
Corinth ' a plentiful outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon all/ {irX-qp-qs 
Hvtv/xaros ''Ayiov ?/c%i/crts enl ir&VTas iyivero) — or that of Ignatius, ad- 
dressed to the Church of Smyrna, ' that it was mercifully blest with 
every good gift/ (£j> iravrl xa/uV/iari), ' that it was wanting in no good 
gift/ (avvaTiprjTos odaa iravrbs xa/Hoyiaros) — such phraseology, I say, 
being compared with times both before and after, when it undoubt- 
edly had miraculous as well as other gifts in contemplation, would 
lead us to think, I agree with Dodwell, that Clemens and Ignatius 
did not exclude such gifts from their account." {Blunt on the Early 
Fathers, lect. vi.) 

Bishop Kaye states his view of the early Church miracles in the fol- 
lowing passage : — 

" The supposition that miraculous powers were gradually withdrawr 
from the Church, appears in a great measure to account for the uncer- 
tainty which has prevailed respecting the period of their cessation. 
To adopt the language of undoubting confidence on such a subject 
would be a mark no less of folly than presumption ; but I may be 
allowed to state the conclusion to which I have myself been led by 
a comparison of the statements in the Book of Acts with the writings 
of the Fathers of the second century. My conclusion then is, that the 
power of working miracles was not extended beyond the disciples, 
upon whom the Apostles conferred it by the imposition of their hands. 
As the number of those disciples gradually diminished, the instances 
of the exercises of miraculous powers became continually less frequent. 



302 Note =; [Lect. 

and ceased entirely at the death of the last individual on whom the 
hands of the Apostles had been laid. That event would, in the natu- 
ral course of things, take place before the middle of the second cen- 
tury, — at a time when, Christianity having obtained a footing in all 
the provinces of the Roman Empire, the miraculous gifts conferred 
upon its first teachers had performed their appropriate office, — that of 
proving to the world that a New Revelation had been given from 
heaven. What then would be the effect produced upon the minds of 
the great body of Christians by their gradual cessation ? Many would 
not observe, none would be willing to observe it; for all must natu- 
rally feel a reluctance to believe that powers which had contributed 
so essentially to the rapid diffusion of Christianity were withdrawn. 
They who remarked the cessation of miracles would probably succeed 
in persuading themselves that it was only temporary, and designed 
by an all- wise Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant effu- 
sion of supernatural gifts upon the Church. Or if doubts and mis- 
givings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling openly to 
state a fact which might shake the steadfastness of their friends, and 
would certainly be urged by the enemies of. the Gospel as an argu- 
ment against its Divine origin. They would pursue the plan which 
has been pursued by Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus, &c. ; they 
would have recourse to general assertions of the existence of super- 
natural powers, without attempting to produce a specific instance of 

their exercise Let me repeat, that I offer these observations 

with that diffidence in my own conclusions which ought to be the 
predominant feeling in the mind of every inquirer into the ways of 
Providence. I collect from passages already cited from the Book of 
Acts, that the power of working miracles was conferred by the hands 
of the Apostles only ; and consequently ceased with the last disciple 
on whom their hands were laid. I perceive in the language of the 
Fathers, who lived in the middle and end of the second century, 
when speaking on this subject, something which betrays, if not a con- 
viction, at least a suspicion, that the power of working miracles was 
withdrawn, combined with an anxiety to keep up a belief of its con- 
tinuance in the Church. They affirm in general terms that miracles 
were performed, but rarely venture to produce an instance of a parti- 
cular miracle. Those who followed them were less scrupulous, and 
proceeded to invent miracles ; very different indeed in circumstances 
and character from the miracles of the Gospel, yet readily believed by 
men who were not disposed nicely to examine into the evidence of 
facts which they wished to be true. The success of the first attempts 
naturally encouraged others to practise similar impositions upon the 
credulity of mankind. In every succeeding age miracles multiplied 
in number and increased in extravagance ; till at length, by their fre- 
quency, they lost all title to the name, since they could no longer be 
considered as deviations from the ordinary course of nature." (Kaye's 
Tertullian, pp. 98 et seq.) 

Upon the question of the continuance of miraculous powers in the 
Church our earlier divines decline to draw any precise line, and are 



VIII] 



Note 5 30; 



favourable to an indefinite prolongation of their existence in the 
Church. Thus Jackson : — 

" Generally, miracles were usual in the infancy of Christianity, as 
we read in ecclesiastical stories; nor can it be certainly gathered 
when they did certainly cease. To say they endured no longer than 
the primitive Church can give no universal satisfaction, save only to 
such as think it enough for all the world to have the light of the 
Gospel locked up in the chancel of some one glorious church : for 
some churches were but in the prime or change, when others were 
full of Christian knowledge. The use of miracles at the same instant 
was befitting the one, not the other. For God usually speaks to new- 
born children in Christ by miracles or sensible declarations of His 
power, mercy, or justice : as parents deter their children from evil in 
tender years by the rod, or other sensible signs of their displeasure ; 
and allure them to goodness with apples, or other like visible pledges 
of their love : but when they come to riper years, and are capable of 
discourse, or apprehensive of wholesome admonitions, they seek to 
rule them by reason. Proportionably to this course of parents doth. 
God speak to His Church : in her infancy (wheresoever planted), by 
sensible documents of His power ; in her maturity, by the ordinary 
preaching of His word, which is more apt to ripen and confirm true 
Christian faith than any miracles are, so men would submit their 
reason unto the rules set down in Scripture, and unpartially examine 
all events of time by them, as elsewhere, God willing, we shall show. 

" These grounds, well considered, will move any sober spirit at the 
least to suspend his assent, and not suffer his mind to be hastily over- 
swayed with absolute distrust of all such miracles, as either our 
writers report to have been wrought in this our land at the Saxons' 
first coming hither, or the French historiographers record in the first 
conversion of the Franks, or in the prime of that Church." (Jackson's 
Comments on the Creed, bk. i. ch. 13.) 

Professor Blunt dissents from Bishop Kaye's position respecting the 
early Church miracles : — 

" Though the Bishop of Lincoln's theory is one which is well cal- 
culated to reconcile a sceptical age to the acceptance of ecclesiastical 
miracles in a degree, and though I have sometimes felt inclined to 
adopt it myself, yet on further reading and further examination of 
the subject, I am led to doubt if the testimony of the Fathers can be 
squared to it, if it can satisfy the conditions of the case." (On the 
Early Fathers, p. 406.) 

Warburton admits some special miracles, rejects the great body, 
especially those of later times, and for the rest adopts the position of 
a suspense of judgment : — 

" Not that it is my purpose positively to brand as false every pre- 
tended miracle recorded in ecclesiastical and civil history, which wants 



304 Note 5 

this favourable capacity of being reduced to one or other of the species 
explained above. All that I contend for is, that those miracles, still 
remaining unsupported by the nature of that evidence which I ha've 
shown ought to force conviction from every reasonable mind, should 
be at present excluded from the privilege of that conviction. 

" Indeed the greater part may be safely given up. Of the rest, 
which yet stand undiscredited by any considerable marks of impos- 
ture, we may safely suspend our belief, till time hath afforded farther 
lights to direct our judgment. " (Divine Legation, bk. ix. ch. 5.) 



MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: July 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



P. L. 117 



£BLM 



THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

M87 



fG-as* — - 

All losses or injuries beyond reasonable wear, how- 
ever caused, must be promptly adjusted by the person 
to whom the book is charged. 

Fine for over detention, two cents a day (Sundays 
and holidays excluded). 



3 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1959 9—1330 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

llll 




014 500 896 7 



